has no idea what he is saying; rather, that is someone else called Ṭāwūs—if the report is even sound—just as the grave to the east of Damascus that people attribute to Ubayy is certainly not that of Ubayy ibn Kaʿb.
Ṭāwūs is also the one whose son relates that he regarded an oath sworn by pronouncing divorce as of no consequence. The reason, he explained, is that al-Ḥajjāj and his entourage used to force people, when pledging allegiance to the ruler, to swear by Allah, by the manumission of slaves, by divorce, by the pilgrimage, and similar formulas.
What appears to me is that al-Ḥajjāj’s brother—Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf, the governor of Yemen—made the populace take such oaths. Ṭāwūs was consulted about this and ruled that the oaths were void, because the people had been coerced into uttering them—Allah knows best.
Ḍamrah ibn Rabīʿah, reporting from Ibn Shawdhāb, said: “I attended the funeral of Ṭāwūs in Mecca in the year 105 AH, and the people kept saying, ‘May Allah have mercy on Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; he performed forty pilgrimages.’”
ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated from his father, who said: “Ṭāwūs died in Mecca, and the funeral prayer was not held for him until Ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik sent the guards.
“I saw ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan carrying the bier on his shoulder; the skullcap he wore fell off and his cloak was torn from behind, yet he did not leave the bier until it reached the grave. Ṭāwūs passed away at Muzdalifah, or at Minā.”
I say: If any Shiʿite leaning was attributed to him, it was slight and—Allah willing—of no harm.
Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Wāqidī, Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, al-Haytham and others stated that Ṭāwūs died in the year 106 AH.
Another report says that his death occurred on the Day of Tarwiyah (1) in Dhu’l-Ḥijjah, and that the caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik happened to lead the funeral prayer for him. A few days later he likewise led the prayer in Medina for Sālim ibn ʿAbd Allah.
Our shaykh says in Tahdhīb al-Kamāl:
Those who narrated from him include: Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Bakr al-Akhansī, Ibrāhīm ibn Maysarah, Ibrāhīm ibn Yazīd al-Khūzī, and Usāmah ibn Zayd