—the money that I brought you, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.”
He said, “Did I take anything from you?”
“No.”
Tāwūs then looked toward the place where it had been put, reached out his hand, and there was the purse—now covered over with a spider’s web. He took it and returned it to them.
Through this same chain Abū Nuʿaym said: Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad narrated to us; Abū Maʿmar narrated to me, from Ibn ʿUyaynah, who said:
ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz told Tāwūs, “Present your need to the Commander of the Believers”—meaning Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.
He replied, “I have no need of him.”
ʿUmar was amazed at this.
Sufyān said: Ibrāhīm ibn Maysarah swore to us, while facing the Kaʿbah: “By the Lord of this House (1), I have never seen anyone before whom both the noble and the commoner are equal save Tāwūs.”
By this same chain Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad narrated to us; my father narrated to me; ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us; Maʿmar informed us, from the son of Tāwūs, who said:
“I kept saying to my father, ‘People ought to rise up against this ruler and deal with him.’
“We set out for the pilgrimage and stopped in a village that had an administrator—one of the governor of Yemen’s men—called Ibn Najīḥ, the most wicked of their officials. We prayed the dawn prayer in the mosque. Ibn Najīḥ came, sat in front of Tāwūs, and greeted him with peace, but he did not answer. He spoke to him, and he turned away; he moved to the other side, and he turned away again. When I saw this, I went up, took his hand, and began to question him, saying, ‘ʿAbd al-Raḥmān did not recognize you.’
“The official said, ‘Indeed, his knowing me is exactly why he acted as you saw.’
“He went off without saying a word to me. When I entered the lodging, my father said, ‘You fool! You claim you want to rise against them with your sword, yet you could not even restrain your tongue before him.’”