so a tent and a small pavilion were pitched for me. Suddenly a dog came in, a gold collar around its neck. I caught hold of it, when a lone rider appeared; I felt apprehensive yet invited him to dismount. Before long the rest of the cavalry drew up, and it turned out to be Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah himself.

After performing the prayer he asked me, “Who are you?”

When I told him, he said, “If you wish, I shall write you a decree here; or, if you prefer, you may come with me inside.”

I replied, “Rather write it for me right here where I am.”

He thereupon ordered that the one hundred thousand be returned to me, and I went back. It is also reported that while he was there he emancipated thirty slaves and was devoted in worship.

Al-Madāʾinī (1) relates: He once hurled a roasting-spit at one of his slaves, but missed and struck his own child, tearing out the child’s brain. The slave panicked, whereupon he said, “Go—you are free. Had I killed you I would have destroyed myself, for my act toward you was deliberate, whereas my son I struck in error.”

Later ʿAbd al-Raḥmān went blind and fell ill. It is likewise said that his mother worked in perfumery and used to mingle with the womenfolk of Ibn Ziyād; she found this child, picked him up, and raised him.

He died during the caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān.

He is reliable.

93 — Abū Rajāʾ al-ʿAtāridī, ʿImrān ibn Milḥān * (ʿA)

The eminent Imām, Shaykh al-Islām, ʿImrān ibn Milḥān al-Tamīmī of Basra.

He was one of the senior mukhadramūn—those who lived in both the pre-Islamic era and in Islam. He embraced Islam after the Conquest of Mecca but did not meet the Prophet ﷺ.

Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr includes him in his work al-Istīʿāb (2).

Some maintain that he saw Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq.