ibn Muḥārib ibn Fihr ibn Mālik—Abū Unays (1) al-Fihri—was, according to the soundest view, one of the Companions. He heard directly from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and transmitted several hadiths from him, and a number of the Successors narrated from him. He was the brother of Fāṭimah bint Qays, who was ten years older than he, and Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrāḥ was his paternal uncle, as reported by Ibn Abī Ḥātim (2).

Some have nevertheless maintained that he possessed no Companionship. Al-Wāqidī said that he reached the Prophet ﷺ and heard from him before coming of age; in another report al-Wāqidī stated that al-Ḍaḥḥāk was born two years before the Prophet ﷺ passed away.

He witnessed the conquest of Damascus, settled there, and owned a house by Ḥajar al-Dhahab on the bank of the Baradā River. He commanded the Damascenes at Ṣiffīn under Muʿāwiyah, and when Muʿāwiyah seized Kūfa he appointed him governor there in 54 AH. Al-Bukhārī relates in his Tārīkh that al-Ḍaḥḥāk once recited Sūrat Ṣād (38) to the congregation in Kūfa and performed the prostration therein, yet ʿAlqamah and the companions of Ibn Masʿūd did not follow him in the prostration.

Muʿāwiyah later recalled him to Damascus, where he remained until Muʿāwiyah died and authority passed first to his son Yazīd, then to Yazīd’s son Muʿāwiyah ibn Yazīd, after which events unfolded as we have already described.

Imām Aḥmad said: ʿAffān ibn Muslim narrated to us, Ḥammād ibn Salamah narrated to us, from ʿAlī ibn Zayd, from al-Ḥasan, that al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays wrote to [Qays ibn] (3) al-Haytham when Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah died:

“Peace be upon you. To proceed: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say,
‘Ahead of the Hour there will be tribulations as dark as stretches of the night—trials like billows of smoke. In them a man’s heart will die just as his body dies; a person will awaken a believer and reach nightfall a disbeliever, or reach nightfall a believer and awaken a disbeliever. People will sell their share and their religion for a paltry portion of this world.’ ⦗4⦘

Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah has died, and you are our brothers and close kin, so do not outstrip us until we have chosen for ourselves.”

Ibn ʿAsākir (5) transmitted, through Ibn Qutaybah, from al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Faraj al-Riyāshī, from Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq ibn Tawbah, from Ḥammād ibn Zayd, who said: al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays entered upon Muʿāwiyah, whereupon Muʿāwiyah chanted to him:

I kept reaching toward al-Ḍaḥḥāk until I brought him back
 to a lineage among his folk that stands diminished.