and a number of others maintained that they had decided to depose Hisham. Thus Hisham said to Zayd ibn ʿAli, “I have been told such-and-such about you—is it true?!”
Zayd answered, “It is not.”
Hisham replied, “It has been verified for me.”
Zayd offered, “Shall I swear an oath to you?”
Hisham said, “I will not believe you.”
Zayd retorted, “Allah will never raise the standing of anyone who is made to swear by Him and yet is not believed.”
Hisham ordered, “Leave my presence.”
Zayd said, “Then you will see me again only where you hate to see me.”

I (the author) say: He set out relying on his own legal judgment and was killed as a martyr—would that he had not set out. When his son Yaḥyā was later slain in Khurasan, he recited:
“Every slain man has a clan that seeks his blood,
yet for Zayd, in the two Iraqs, no avenger is found.”

I add: Yaḥyā rose in Khurasan and all but gained sovereignty.

Ibn Saʿd said: “He was killed by Salm ibn Aḥwaz.”

His mother was Rayṭa bint ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyya.

Al-Haytham said: “Yaḥyā left no descendants.”

Naṣr ibn Sayyār, the governor of Khurasan, had dispatched Salm against Yaḥyā. Salm overpowered him and killed him after fierce battles and repeated engagements. An arrow struck Yaḥyā ibn Zayd in the temple and killed him; they severed his head and sent it to Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik in Syria, while his body was crucified in Juzjan. Later Abū Muslim al-Khurasānī took it down, buried him, and ordered public mourning for a week in Balkh and in Marw. In fact, no child born at that time in Khurasan among the Arabs or the notable families was named anything but Yaḥyā.

Abū Muslim then brought the Umayyad register and began to go through the names of Yaḥyā’s killers and all who had marched in that expedition against him; whoever among them was still alive he put to death.

Al-Layth ibn Saʿd said: “Yaḥyā was killed in the year 125 AH—may Allah have mercy on him.”

179 – Sayyār ibn Wardān, Abū al-Ḥakam al-ʿAnazī, their client (ʿ)
The Imām, the proof, the exemplar, the godly one: Abū al-Ḥakam al-Wāsitī, the ʿAnazī, their client.