113 – Al-Ḥusayn narrated to us; ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; Abū Zayd al-Numayrī told me; Abū Ghassān Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Kinānī told me; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿImrān al-Zuhrī reported:

Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—said to Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah, after Yazīd had mentioned ʿAlī—may Allah honor his face:

“O Yazīd son of Muʿāwiyah son of Ṣakhr! ʿAlī was ⦗94⦘ among them like one of Allah’s arrows loosed against His enemy: he made them disgorge what they had eaten, seized them by their throats, kept them from corrupt fare, and pressed them with the harshness of a meagre life.”

Abū Bakr (one of the transmitters) remarked: “By ‘the harshness of life’ he means its severity.”

Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī went on: “So much so that, in the eyes of their grandees, he became smaller than a contemptible slave-girl. They tagged him ‘the weak one’—that is the label they concocted—and pelted him with a medley of falsehoods. Yet he would advance, steadfast on the crest of his course, in full view of the people and under the watch of their lookouts, borne along by a vanguard of helpers and supporters.

They fear that, should power ever pass to us over you, we would shatter your bones and put an end to your affair; for the killing‐ground is laid bare and the veils are torn away, and we have no stratagem to escape the decrees of death:

‘And those who have wronged shall soon know what outcome they will meet.’