Then the year 17 AH began.

In its month of Muḥarram Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ moved from al-Madāʾin to Kūfah. The Companions had found al-Madāʾin unhealthy ⦗1⦘: their complexions grew sallow and their bodies weakened because of the multitude of flies and the constant dust. Saʿd therefore wrote to ʿUmar about the matter, and ʿUmar replied, “The Arabs can prosper only where their camels prosper.” Saʿd thereupon dispatched Ḥudhayfah and Salmān (ibn Ziyād) to scout ⦗2⦘ for the Muslims a location suitable for residence. They passed by the land of Kūfah—gravel strewn over reddish sand—and it pleased them. There they found three monasteries ⦗3⦘: the Monastery of Ḥurqah bint al-Nuʿmān, the Monastery of Umm ʿAmr, and the Monastery of Silsilah; scattered among them were khuṣāṣ (reed-huts) ⦗4⦘ within what is now Kūfah. The two men alighted, prayed there,

and each supplicated: “O Allah, Lord of the heaven and all it shades, Lord of the earth and all it bears, Lord of the wind and all it scatters, of the stars and all that fall, of the seas and all that flow, of the devils and all they lead astray, and of these huts and all they shelter—bless for us this Kūfah and make it a place of permanence.” They then wrote to Saʿd with their report.

Saʿd ordered that Kūfah be laid out and travelled there at the beginning of that year, in Muḥarram. The first structure he erected ⦗5⦘ was the mosque. He told a powerful archer to stand inside the mosque and shoot arrows in the four directions; wherever an arrow landed the people were to build their homes. He also built a citadel facing ⦗6⦘ the mosque’s miḥrāb, to serve as the governor’s residence and the treasury. At first the houses were built of qaṣab (reeds), but they burned down ⦗7⦘ during the year, so—by order of ʿUmar—the dwellings were rebuilt with labin (sun-dried bricks) on condition that there be no extravagance or excess. Saʿd summoned the commanders and the tribal delegations; when they arrived he settled them in Kūfah. He instructed Abū Hayyāj ⦗8⦘, the official in charge of allotting housing there, to build while leaving the main thoroughfare forty cubits wide, the lesser streets thirty and twenty cubits, and the alleyways seven cubits.

A residence was built for Saʿd near the market of al-Shawq, but the clamour of the populace [kept] him from being heard, so he shut his door and would say, “Quiet the noise!” When this remark reached ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, he dispatched Muḥammad ibn Maslamah and instructed him: when you reach Kūfah, strike your flint, gather wood, set fire to the gate of the residence, and then return immediately. When Muḥammad reached Kūfah he carried out ʿUmar’s order and told Saʿd not to close his door to the people nor to place a