Al-Ḍaḥḥāk replied, “Our people know that we are the ahlās of the horses.”
Muʿāwiyah said, “You have spoken truly: you are their ahlās, and we are their horsemen.”
Muʿāwiyah meant, “You are those who train and manage the mounts, whereas we are the riders.” The expression goes back to ḥils, the cloth spread beneath a saddle-pad, that clings to the animal’s back just as its riders do.
It is also related (1) that the muʾadhdhin of Damascus once said to al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays, “By Allah, O governor, I love you for Allah’s sake.” Al-Ḍaḥḥāk replied, “But, by Allah, I hate you for Allah’s sake.” The man asked, “Why, may Allah set you right?” He said, “Because you show off in your call to prayer and you take payment for teaching it.”
Al-Ḍaḥḥāk (may Allah have mercy on him) was killed at Marj Rāhiṭ on the fifteenth of Dhu al-Ḥijjah in 64 AH, according to al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Abū ʿUbayd, al-Wāqidī, Ibn Zabr, and al-Madāʾinī.
In that same year al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr al-Anṣārī (2) was also slain. His mother was ʿAmrah bint Rawāḥah. Al-Nuʿmān was the first child born in Madinah among the Anṣār after the Hijrah, in Jumādā al-Ūlā of year 2 AH. His mother carried him to the Prophet ﷺ, who performed the taḥnīk for him and foretold that he would live honorably, be martyred, and enter Paradise—and so he lived in comfort and prosperity.
He served as Muʿāwiyah’s deputy governor in Kūfa for nine months, then settled in Syria, where he became its judge after Ibn ʿUbayd; Faḍālah held the office after Abū al-Dardāʾ. He was also Muʿāwiyah’s deputy in Ḥimṣ.
It was he who, on Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah’s instructions, sent the Family of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ back to Madinah. He further advised Yazīd—[saying, “Treat them as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would have treated them were he to see them in their present state”] (3)—so Yazīd was moved, dealt kindly with them, and honored them.
Later, when the battle of Marj Rāhiṭ took place and al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays was killed—al-Nuʿmān having earlier supplied him with the forces of Ḥimṣ—the people of Ḥimṣ turned against al-Nuʿmān and killed him in a village called Bīrīn (4). His slayer was a man named Khālid ibn Khalīyy al-Māzinī—