and to Ibn ʿAbbās about him. Someone said to one of them, “Revelation is being sent to him,” and to the other, “Messages are descending upon him.” One of the two replied, “Indeed, the devils do whisper to their allies” (Qur’an 6:121), while the other said, “Shall I inform you upon whom the devils descend? They descend upon every sinful liar” (Qur’an 26:221–222).

As for “the destroyer,” that was al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf al-Thaqafī: a merciless butcher who spilled blood without right in order to uphold the rule of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, whose deputy he was.

Al-Bukhārī and Muslim relate from Abū Hurayrah that he said: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) once said, ‘Which of you will spread out his cloak so that he may receive some of my words and then gather it to his chest? He will never forget anything he hears.’ I therefore spread my mantle until he had finished speaking; then I folded it to my chest, and from that day on I never forgot a single word I heard from him.”

And in the two Ṣaḥīḥs it is also narrated from Jābir ibn Samurah that he said: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, ‘Islam will remain mighty until twelve—’”}