He said to them, “Are you not ashamed? We strike that man in the eye morning and evening, yet you go to him asking for money!” They answered, “You have denied us, whereas he has been generous to us.”

Al-Aṣmaʿī relates: Al-Ḥasan and ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr visited Muʿāwiyah. To al-Ḥasan he said, “Welcome, son of the Messenger of Allah,” and ordered that three hundred thousand be given to him. To Ibn al-Zubayr he said, “Welcome, son of the Messenger’s aunt,” and ordered one hundred thousand for him. [Abū Marwān al-Marwānī reports that Muʿāwiyah sent al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī one hundred thousand.]

⦗1⦘ Al-Ḥusayn divided the sum among the ten men who were sitting with him, each receiving ten thousand. Muʿāwiyah also sent one hundred thousand to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar; his wife Fāṭimah asked him for it, and he gave it to her. He sent one hundred thousand to Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam; Marwān distributed fifty thousand and kept fifty thousand. He sent one hundred thousand to Ibn ʿUmar; Ibn ʿUmar disbursed ninety thousand and retained ten thousand, whereupon Muʿāwiyah remarked, “He is moderate and loves moderation.” He then sent one hundred thousand to ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr. Ibn al-Zubayr said to the courier, “Why did you bring it by day? Could you not have come by night?” He kept the money and gave none of it away, so Muʿāwiyah said—

⦗2⦘ “He is a wily desert lizard, ⦗3⦘ as though you see him raise his tail and snap his tether. ⦗4⦘”

Ibn Daʾb narrates: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar received from Muʿāwiyah each year one million, along with the granting of one hundred requests. He visited him one year; Muʿāwiyah gave him the money and fulfilled the requests, save one. While he was still with him, the ispahbadh ⦗5⦘ of Sijistān arrived, asking Muʿāwiyah to appoint him over those lands and promising whoever secured the request one million of his own wealth. He went round to the leading notables of Syria and the commanders of Iraq who had come with al-Aḥnaf ibn Qays, and every one of them said, “You must see ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar.” So the dehqān approached him, and Ibn Jaʿfar spoke to Muʿāwiyah on his behalf. Muʿāwiyah granted the request, completing the hundred favors, and ordered the scribe to draw up the decree. Ibn Jaʿfar went out with it to the dehqān, who prostrated before him and brought him one million dirhams. Ibn Jaʿfar said, “Prostrate to Allah and take your money home; ours is a household that does not sell benevolence for a price.” When this reached Muʿāwiyah he said, “I would rather that Yazīd had said those words than have the revenue of Iraq. The Banū Hāshim are nothing if not generous. ⦗6⦘”

Another narrator says: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar received from Muʿāwiyah one million every year, and in one year there accumulated