is safe, and whoever joins Qutaybah ibn Muslim in Rayy is likewise safe.” A great many of those who had marched with Ibn al-Ashʿath went to Qutaybah and al-Ḥajjāj granted them amnesty. Those who did not were pursued; he killed large numbers of them, and the last to be put to death was Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, as will be detailed later—Allah’s help is sought.
Among those who had sought refuge with Qutaybah ibn Muslim was al-Shaʿbī. One day al-Ḥajjāj mentioned him, and someone said, “He has gone over to Qutaybah ibn Muslim.” Al-Ḥajjāj thereupon wrote to Qutaybah: “Send al-Shaʿbī to me.”
Al-Shaʿbī relates: “When I entered upon him I greeted him with the salutation due to an emir and then said, ‘O Emir, the people have instructed me to offer you an excuse other than what Allah knows to be the truth. By Allah, I shall say nothing here today but the truth, whatever may follow from it. Indeed, by Allah, we rebelled against you, we rose up and strove with all our might, leaving nothing undone. Yet we were neither powerful evildoers nor devoutly righteous. Allah granted you victory over us and delivered us into your hand. If you punish, it is for our sins and not because our hands harmed you; and if you pardon, it is out of your forbearance. In any case, the argument is with you against us.’
Al-Ḥajjāj replied, ‘By Allah, O Shaʿbī, what you have said is dearer to me than the words of a man who comes to us with his sword still dripping with our blood and says, “I did nothing and was not even present.” You are safe with us, O Shaʿbī.’
“I withdrew,” al-Shaʿbī continues, “but after I had walked a little way he called, ‘Come here, Shaʿbī!’ My heart trembled, then I remembered his words, ‘You are safe, Shaʿbī,’ and I felt reassured. He asked, ‘How have you found the people since we left them, Shaʿbī?’ (He had honored me before we rose against him.) I answered, ‘May Allah set the Emir aright! Since you were gone my eyes have been rimmed with sleeplessness, the terrain has become forbidding (1), fear has clung to me (2), I have lost righteous companions, and I have found no one to replace the Emir.’ He said, ‘You may go, Shaʿbī,’ and I left.”
Ibn Jarīr and others relate this account, and Abū Mikhnaf transmitted it through Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Suddī from al-Shaʿbī (3).
Al-Bayhaqī (4) reports that al-Ḥajjāj once asked al-Shaʿbī about the “fool’s problem” in the laws of inheritance—a case involving a mother, a husband, and a sister—and what Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, and Ibn Masʿūd had each said regarding it. Al-Shaʿbī repeated all of their opinions in a single sitting, declared ʿAlī’s view the most admirable, but ruled according to ʿUthmān’s verdict; al-Ḥajjāj released him because of that.
It is also said that al-Ḥajjāj executed five thousand prisoners (5) whom Yazīd ibn al-Muhallab had sent on to him, as noted earlier. He then proceeded to Kūfah, entered it, and refused to accept anyone’s pledge of allegiance until he made the man say, “I bear witness against myself that I have disbelieved.” If the man complied, he accepted his pledge; if he refused, he killed him. Thus he slew a great many who would not testify against themselves that they were unbelievers.
A man was brought before him, and al-Ḥajjāj said, “I do not suppose this one will confess to disbelief, given his piety and devotion”—for al-Ḥajjāj intended to trick him—so the man said: