of Byzantium, where he met Jabalah ibn al-Ayham and saw the worldly prosperity in which he lived, together with the servants, attendants, gold, and horses at his disposal.

Jabalah said to him, “If I knew that Muʿāwiyah would grant me the land of al-Bathaniyyah ⦗1⦘—for it is our ancestral home—along with twenty villages in the Ghūṭah of Damascus, fix stipends for our people, and reward us handsomely, I would return to al-Shām.”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿadah conveyed his words to Muʿāwiyah. Muʿāwiyah replied, “Yes, I shall give him that,” and wrote him a letter to that effect, sending it by courier; but the courier reached him only after he had died that same year—may Allah disfigure him.

Most of these accounts are related by Shaykh Abū al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī in al-Muntaẓam, where he dates Jabalah’s death to this very year, i.e., 53 AH.

Ibn ʿAsākir, in his Taʾrīkh, also gives a lengthy and valuable biography and concludes, “I have been informed that Jabalah died during Muʿāwiyah’s caliphate in Byzantine territory, sometime after 40 AH; Allah knows best.”

[Then came the year 54 AH.]

During it, Muḥammad ibn Mālik wintered in the land of the Byzantines, and the summer expedition was led by Maʿn ibn Yazīd al-Sulamī.

In the same year Muʿāwiyah dismissed Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ from the governorship of Medina, reinstated Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam, and wrote instructing him to demolish Saʿīd’s house and liquidate his property in the Ḥijāz. Marwān therefore came with workmen to Saʿīd’s residence to raze it.

Saʿīd said, “You are not going to do that.” Marwān replied, “The Commander of the Believers has written to me, and had he written to you about my house you would have done the same.”

Saʿīd thereupon produced the letter Muʿāwiyah had sent him when appointing him governor of Medina, commanding him to demolish Marwān’s house and confiscate his wealth, adding that he had continued to plead with Muʿāwiyah on Marwān’s behalf until the order was withdrawn.

When Marwān saw the letter addressed to Saʿīd, it deterred him from touching Saʿīd’s house or property. He kept interceding for him until Muʿāwiyah let him remain in his house and left his wealth intact.

That same year Muʿāwiyah also removed Samurah ibn Jundub from Basra. Ziyād had appointed him there, and Muʿāwiyah confirmed him for six months before dismissing him and installing ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn Ghaylān in his place.

Ibn Jarīr and others report from Samurah that, upon his dismissal, he said, “May Allah curse Muʿāwiyah! Had I obeyed Allah as I obeyed Muʿāwiyah, He would never have punished me.” This report, however, is not soundly attributed to him.

In the same year ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ziyād arrived in Damascus from Iraq to visit Muʿāwiyah ⦗2⦘, who honored him and asked about his father’s deputies.