306 — Al-Mufaddal ibn Ghassān related to me. He said: Abū Mushir al-Dimashqī related to us; Hishām ibn Yahyā ibn Yahyā al-Ghassānī related to us. He said: My father related to me. He said:

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān emerged from the Rock and caught up with Sulaymān ibn Qays al-Ghassānī and Ibn Hubayrah al-Kindī as they walked through the courtyard of the Jerusalem sanctuary. Neither noticed him until he placed one hand upon Sulaymān’s shoulder and the other upon Ibn Hubayrah’s, then said, “Make way for a dominion unlike that of Ghassān or Kindah!”

They turned around and there stood the Commander of the Faithful. They were about to boast of their ancestral kingdoms when he said, “Easy, both of you! Is not that which arose in Islam better than what existed in the Age of Ignorance?”

“Yes,” they replied.

“Then my dominion is better than either of yours,” he said.

They then walked with him until he reached his residence. He entered and gave them permission to come in, then said to them:

“A poet once said:

[Kāmil meter]

‘She came to lay me low; I said, “Deal gently—
A companion has a claim upon his companion’s honor.”’

You have accompanied me from the place where you saw me, and by doing so you have acquired a right over me and a claim upon my honor. If you wish to present whatever request you have at once, you may do so; or, if you prefer to leave and consider it at your leisure, you may do that.”

They replied, “We shall leave, Commander of the Faithful.”

He said: “Thereafter, they never presented him with a request without his granting it.”