[The year 60 AH]
During this year took place the expedition of Mālik ibn ʿAbd Allah against a Syrian city (1).
Al-Wāqidī said: In the same year Junādah ibn Abī Umayyah reached the island of Rhodes. In it also Muʿāwiyah secured the oath of allegiance to Yazīd from the delegation that had come to Damascus in the company of ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyād. And in this year Muʿāwiyah fell ill with the sickness that led to his death, in the month of Rajab, as we shall relate.
Ibn Jarīr transmitted—through Abū Mikhnaf—that ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Nawfal ibn Masāḥiq ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Makhramah told him: When Muʿāwiyah was struck by the illness that would carry him off, he summoned his son Yazīd and said:
“My son, I have spared you the journeys and the men, prepared matters for you, subdued your enemies (2), and bent the necks of the Arabs to you. I fear that none will challenge this authority which has been secured for you except four men: al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar, ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr”—so he said, though the correct view, as noted earlier, is that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān had died two years before Muʿāwiyah.
“As for Ibn ʿUmar, worship has worn him down (3); were no one left but he, he would pledge allegiance to you. As for al-Ḥusayn, the people of Iraq stand behind him and will not leave him until they bring him out against you. If he rises against you and you prevail over him, then pardon him, for he is closely related to you and enjoys a great right. As for Ibn Abī Bakr, he is a man who merely imitates whatever he sees his companions do; he cares for nothing but women and amusement. But the one who will crouch before you like a lion, dodge you like a fox, and leap the moment an opportunity appears is Ibn al-Zubayr. Should he do that to you and you gain power over him, then cut him to pieces, limb by limb (4).”
More than one narrator has said: When death approached Muʿāwiyah, Yazīd was away hunting. Muʿāwiyah therefore summoned al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays al-Fihrī—who was commander of the Damascus police—and Muslim ibn ʿUqbah, and instructed them to convey his greetings to Yazīd and to tell him: he is to treat the people of the Ḥijāz kindly; and if the Iraqis ask him every single day to dismiss a governor and appoint another, he should comply, for removing one man is better for you than having one hundred thousand swords drawn against you. He is to treat the people of al-Shām well, make them his supporters, and acknowledge their rights.
“I fear for him, among Quraysh, none but three: al-Ḥusayn, Ibn ʿUmar, and Ibn al-Zubayr”—he did not mention ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr, and this version is sounder. “As for Ibn ʿUmar, worship has enfeebled him. As for al-Ḥusayn, he is a light man, and I hope that Allah will spare you from him—his father having been slain and his brother abandoned—yet he is closely related to you and possesses a great right.”