Ahmaq?’

He said: Our tongues froze so completely that we thought we were already dead men (1). As for me, I was struck dumb (2); Ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad became mute—he was a stammerer by nature—and Abū Zurʿah the judge, the youngest of us, managed to say, ‘May Allah set the commander aright.’

Al-Wāsiṭī turned to him and said, ‘Be quiet until someone older than you speaks.’ Then he faced us and asked, ‘What do you have to say?’

We answered, ‘May Allah rectify you! This man is articulate; he will speak on our behalf.’

He said, ‘Speak.’

The spokesman declared, ‘By Allah, none of us is a Hāshimite, nor a sound Qurashī, nor an eloquent Arab. We are merely a people who once held power until we were overpowered.

‘He has related to us many hadiths from the Prophet ﷺ concerning hearing and obeying in times of ease and hardship, and reports on pardon and kindness. He is the very one who uttered the statement for which we are now being shamed. Then he said, “May Allah amend the commander. I call you to witness that my wives are divorced, my slaves are free, and my wealth is forbidden to me if anyone among these people has spoken that word. Behind us are children and households, and news of our destruction has spread. You now have full power over us, yet true clemency is shown only after one has the power to punish.”’

He (al-Muʿtaḍid) said to al-Wāsiṭī, ‘Abū ʿAbd Allah, release them. May Allah not multiply the likes of them among mankind.’

So he set us free. I, together with Yazīd ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, spent some time with ʿUthmān ibn Khurrāzādh enjoying the gardens, the pleasant air, and the baths of Antioch, while Abū Zurʿah the judge went on ahead to Ḥimṣ.

Ibn Zabr and the Damascenes say: Abū Zurʿah al-Naṣrī died in the year 281 AH, and whoever said he died in 280 was mistaken.