and he appointed ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr ibn Ghīlān ibn Salamah over Baṣrah for six months, then dismissed him and, in 55 AH, installed Ibn Ziyād. When Yazīd assumed the caliphate he placed both Baṣrah and Kūfah under Ibn Ziyād’s authority (1). During Yazīd’s reign Ibn Ziyād built the White Palace, fixing to it the gate of the former White Palace that had belonged to Chosroes. He also erected the Red Palace on the Merbad thoroughfare; he would spend the winter in the Red Palace and the summer in the White.

They relate that a man once came to Ibn Ziyād and said, “May Allah set the governor right. My wife has died, and I wish to marry her mother.” Ibn Ziyād asked, “How much is your stipend in the dīwān?” The man answered, “Seven hundred.” He said to a servant, “Reduce his allotment by four hundred.” Then he told the man, “Those three hundred will cover all the fiqh you possess.” (2)

They also relate that Umm al-Fajīʿ (3) and her husband brought a dispute before him, for the woman wished to separate from her husband. Abū al-Fajīʿ said, “May Allah set the governor right. The best half of a man is the last half of his life, and the worst half of a woman is the last half of hers.” Ibn Ziyād asked, “How so?” He replied, “When a man grows old, his intellect strengthens, his judgment matures, and his ignorance departs. When a woman grows old, her temper worsens, her mind diminishes, her womb becomes barren, and her tongue grows sharp.” Ibn Ziyād said, “You have spoken the truth; take her by the hand and go.”

Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn reports that Ibn Ziyād ordered a gift of two thousand dirhams for Ṣafwān ibn Muḥriz, but the money was stolen. Ṣafwān remarked, “Perhaps this will turn out for the best.” His family protested, “How can that be good?” Word reached Ibn Ziyād, who ordered another two-thousand-dirham payment. Later the stolen sum was recovered, so Ṣafwān ended up with four thousand—thus it was indeed for the best.

Hind bint Asmāʾ ibn Khārijah—who, after Ibn Ziyād, married several governors of ʿIrāq—was asked, “Which of your husbands was dearest and most honored in your eyes?” She answered, “No one honored women [anyone] the way Bishr (4) ibn Marwān did, and no one inspired in women such awe as al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf. Yet I wish the Day of Resurrection would come so that I might see ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyād and soothe myself by hearing his speech and looking at him”—he had been the one who took her virginity (5)—“though I married the others as well.”

ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah narrated, on the authority of Jarīr, from Mughīrah, from Ibrāhīm, who said: “The first person to recite the two protecting sūrahs aloud in an obligatory prayer was Ibn Ziyād.” I say—and Allah knows best—that this was in Kūfah, for Ibn Masʿūd did not write the two sūrahs in his muṣḥaf, and the jurists of Kūfah took much of their practice from many of his companions; Allah knows best.

ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyād was bold and precipitate in shedding blood; he killed a very great number of people. He was coarse and harsh, and would rush to engage in (6) matters that brought him no benefit.

It is established in the hadith recorded by Abū Yaʿlā and by Muslim (7)—both from Shaybān ibn Farrūkh, from Jarīr, from