with a cane that he had inserted between its front teeth, and he kept doing so for a while. Zayd ibn Arqam said to him, “Remove that cane from those two incisors! By Allah, besides Whom there is no deity, I myself saw the lips of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, kissing these very incisors.” The old man then burst into tears.

Ibn Ziyad retorted, “May Allah make your eyes weep! By Allah, were it not that you are an aged man who has grown senile and lost your mind, I would strike off your neck.”

So he rose and left. [When he went out the people said, “By Allah, Zayd ibn Arqam has spoken words which, had Ibn Ziyad heard them, he would have killed him.” I asked, “What did he say?” They replied, “He passed by us saying, ‘A slave has become master over slaves and has made them his hereditary possession.(1) You—O company of Arabs—are slaves from this day on. You killed the son of Fāṭimah and set the son of Marjanah(2) in command; he kills your best men and enslaves your worst. Away with anyone who is pleased with humiliation.’”(3)]

This report has also been transmitted by Abū Dāwūd in his collection through his chain from Zayd ibn Arqam … with a similar wording. Al-Ṭabarānī likewise related it through Thābit from Zayd.

Al-Tirmidhī(4) said: Wāṣil ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā narrated to us; Abū Muʿāwiyah narrated to us, from al-Aʿmash, from ʿUmārah ibn ʿUmayr, who said: When the head of ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyad and the heads of his companions were brought and set up in the mosque at al-Raḥbah, I came upon them while they were saying, “It has come! It has come!” A snake then appeared, weaving among the heads until it entered the nostril of ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyad. It stayed there for a while, then emerged and went away until it disappeared. They said again, “It has come! It has come!” and it did that two or three times. Al-Tirmidhī then remarked, “This report is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.”

Ibn Ziyad ordered that the call be made, “The congregational prayer is about to be held!” The people assembled, he ascended the pulpit, and he spoke of what Allah had granted him in the slaying of al-Ḥusayn, who—he claimed—had sought to wrest the sovereignty from them and divide their ranks.

ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAfīf al-Azdī rose and said, “Woe to you, son of Ziyad! You kill the children of the Prophets and then speak with the words of the truthful?!” Ibn Ziyad ordered that he be seized, whereupon he was killed and crucified.

He then commanded that the head of al-Ḥusayn be raised in Kūfah and paraded through its alleyways, after which he dispatched it with Zaḥr ibn Qays, together with the heads of his companions, to Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah [in Syria. Along with Zaḥr was a contingent of horsemen, among them Abū Burdah ibn ʿAwf al-Azdī and Ṭāriq ibn Abī Ḍabiyān al-Azdī. They set out until they brought all the heads before Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah](5).

Hishām said: ʿAbd Allah ibn Yazīd ibn Rāwḥ ibn Zimbaʿ al-Judhāmī told me, from his father, from al-Ghāz ibn Rabīʿah al-Jurashī—of Ḥimyar—who said: “By Allah, I was with Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah in Damascus when Zaḥr ibn Qays arrived and entered upon Yazīd. Yazīd said to him, ‘Woe to you, what news do you bring?’ [He replied, ‘Rejoice, O Commander of the Believers, in Allah’s conquest and His victory, and the return…’]