59 – Al-ʿAbbās ibn Hishām ibn Muḥammad related to me, from his father; ʿUmar ibn Bashīr—one of the Azd—recounted that ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān once wrote to al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf: “My situation with the people of Iraq is just as the ancients said:

[Ṭawīl metre]

I and they are like one who startles the sand-grouse;
had it not been roused, the bird would have spent the night without setting out.

Out of patience, forbearance, and granting them a respite until tomorrow,
yet I am neither a sluggard nor a timid weakling.

I suspect that the turns of fate between me and them
will land them with me upon a harsh and difficult course.

Have they not learned that my stern resolve is feared,
and that my spear will not bend to coercion?

Why is it that the one whose broken bone I strive to set aright for his own protection
in his folly only intends to break it again?

I meet the ignorant and the guilty among them with clemency,
but were I to punish, my ocean would drown them.”