And Rūḥ ibn Zunbāʿ al-Judhāmī (1) [was one of the governors of Syria, and ʿAbd al-Malik used to consult him in his affairs].

In this same year ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ashʿath al-Kindī met his end [some say it was in the following year; Allah knows best] (2).

The reason was that al-Ḥajjāj wrote to Ratbīl, the Turkish ruler who had given Ibn al-Ashʿath refuge, saying, “By Allah, besides Whom there is no deity, if you do not send Ibn al-Ashʿath to me, I will dispatch to your lands one million fighters and will lay them waste.”

When Ratbīl realised that al-Ḥajjāj’s threat was real, he consulted some of his commanders, who advised him to surrender Ibn al-Ashʿath before al-Ḥajjāj devastated his territory and seized most of his cities. Ratbīl therefore sent to al-Ḥajjāj, stipulating that no hostilities would be waged for ten years and that he would pay no more than one hundred thousand in land tax each year. Al-Ḥajjāj accepted those terms [it is also said that al-Ḥajjāj promised to waive the land tax on his dominion for seven years] (2).

Ratbīl thereupon betrayed Ibn al-Ashʿath. It is said that he ordered him beheaded in his presence and sent the head to al-Ḥajjāj. Others maintain that Ibn al-Ashʿath had fallen from a great height and that his head was then dispatched, while still others claim he became gravely ill and Ratbīl killed him when he was at his last breath (3).

The most widely circulated report, however, is that Ratbīl seized Ibn al-Ashʿath together with thirty of his relatives, shackled them, and sent them off with al-Ḥajjāj’s envoys. When they reached a place on the route called al-Rukhkhaj (4), Ibn al-Ashʿath—his limbs still bound in iron—climbed to the roof of a palace, accompanied by a guard to prevent his escape. He threw himself from the roof, and the guard fell with him; both died. The envoy then severed Ibn al-Ashʿath’s head, slew the companions who were with him, and sent their heads to al-Ḥajjāj.

Al-Ḥajjāj commanded that the head be paraded through Iraq, after which he forwarded it to the Commander of the Faithful ʿAbd al-Malik, where it was displayed in Syria. He then sent it on to ʿAbd al-Malik’s brother ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Marwān in Egypt, and there too it was carried about. Finally the head was buried in Egypt, while the body was interred in al-Rukhkhaj.

A poet lamented:

hīhāta mawḍiʿu juththatin min raʾsihā
raʾsun bi-Miṣra wa-juththatun bi’l-Rukhkhaj
(How far apart lie a body and its head—
the head in Egypt and the corpse in al-Rukhkhaj.)

Ibn Jarīr, however, dates the killing of al-Ashʿath to the year 85 AH; Allah knows best.

This ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was the son of Muḥammad ibn al-Ashʿath ibn Qays—though some say he was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Qays ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ashʿath ibn Qays al-Kindī al-Kūfī—and both Abū Dāwūd and al-Nasāʾī (5) transmitted ḥadith from him, on the authority of his father, who narrated from his grandfather