Shaybān ibn Farrūkh narrated: Salām ibn Miskīn told us, and ʿImrān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Khuzāʿī said:
Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib was summoned to swear allegiance to al-Walīd and Sulaymān after their father’s death, but he declared, “I will never pledge allegiance to two men so long as night and day keep alternating.”
He was told, “Just enter by one door and leave through the other.”
He replied, “By Allah, I will not give anyone grounds to follow my example.”
So he was given one hundred lashes and clothed in garments of sackcloth. (1)
—
Ḍamrah ibn Rabīʿah narrated: Rajāʾ ibn Jamīl said:
When the oath of allegiance was being taken in Medina for al-Walīd and Sulaymān, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd al-Qārī said to Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, “I would like to advise you concerning a few matters.”
He asked, “What are they?”
He said, “First, step away from your usual place, for you are standing where Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl can see you.”
He replied, “I will not abandon a spot I have occupied for forty years.”
He said, “Then travel for ʿumrah.”
He replied, “I will not spend my wealth and weary my body for something in which I have no intention.”
He said, “And the third?”
He said, “Give the pledge.”
Saʿīd answered, “Tell me—if Allah has blinded your heart as He has blinded your sight, what responsibility rests on me?” (He was blind.)
Rajāʾ continued: Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl then summoned him to pledge, but he refused, so Hishām wrote to ʿAbd al-Malik about him. ʿAbd al-Malik replied, “What concern of yours is Saʿīd? We had no complaint against him. But since you have acted, strike him with thirty lashes, dress him in a tubbān of hair-cloth, and stand him before the people, so that others will not follow his lead.”
Hishām therefore summoned him; he refused, saying, “I will not pledge allegiance to two men.” So Hishām dressed him in a tubbān of hair-cloth, flogged him with thirty lashes, and exposed him to the populace.
Men from Aylā who were serving with the police in Medina told me: “We knew he would never put on the tubbān willingly, so we said to him, ‘Abū Muḥammad, this means execution—cover your private parts.’ He therefore put it on; but once he was whipped he realized we had deceived him.
“He cried, ‘O hasty folk of Aylā! Had I not thought it was execution, I would never have worn it.’ (2)”
Hishām ibn Zayd said: “I saw Ibn al-Musayyib when he was being beaten, wearing a tubbān of hair-cloth.”