times. He then secretly sent someone to ask Ibn al-Musayyib about the dream, and he replied, “Four of his own sons will hold the caliphate.”
Hishām was the last of the four. He was covetous, an avid accumulator of wealth, intelligent, resolute, an able administrator—combining oppression with justice.
Abū ʿUmayr ibn al-Naḥḥās narrated from his father:
“Nothing entered Hishām’s treasury until forty men under oath testified, ‘He has taken only what is his due, and the people have received their rights.’”
Al-Aṣmaʿī said: A man addressed Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik with some harsh words, and Hishām retorted, “What is wrong with you that you make your Caliph hear such talk?”
On another occasion he grew angry with a man and said, “By Allah, I was on the verge of striking you a single lash!”
Ibn Saʿd relates, through al-Wāqidī, from Sahbal ibn Muḥammad:
“I never saw any caliph who hated bloodshed more, or to whom it was more grievous, than Hishām. The killing of Zayd ibn ʿAlī and his son Yaḥyā weighed heavily on him, so much so that he said, ‘I wish I could have ransomed them.’”
Al-Wāqidī also reported that Ibn Abī al-Zinād, from his father, said:
“No one detested bloodshed more than Hishām. Zayd’s revolt burdened him greatly, and scarcely had anything happened before Zayd’s head was brought to him.”
Al-Wāqidī added, “When the ʿAbbāsids prevailed, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī exhumed Hishām and crucified him.”
Al-ʿAyshī quoted Hishām as saying, “There is no earthly pleasure that I have not tasted except one: a brother in whose presence I feel no need to be on my guard.”
It is said that only this line of verse is authentically preserved from him:
“If you never curb desire, desire will carry you away—
 to deeds for which you will be reproached.”
Ḥarmalah narrated: al-Shāfiʿī said, “When Hishām built al-Ruṣāfa (1) in Qinnasrīn,