—from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd:

Hadith (1)
“If the two parties to a transaction dispute while the commodity is still present, the statement of the seller prevails, or else they should part.”

Abū al-ʿUmays also transmitted this ḥadith from him.

It is likewise said that al-Ḥajjāj killed him after the year 90 AH; Allah knows best.

What is utterly astonishing is that those people pledged allegiance to him as amir even though he was not from Quraysh—he was a Kindite from Yemen—despite the Companions having agreed at the Day of Saqīfah that leadership belongs solely to Quraysh. al-Ṣiddīq supported that position with the prophetic hadith, and when the Anṣār asked that one of them be appointed along with a leader from the Muhājirūn, al-Ṣiddīq refused. Yet for all that they even struck Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah, who had first called for the idea and then retracted, as we have already explained.

So how could they remove a caliph who had for years been invested with the Muslims’ allegiance—one of pure Quraysh blood—and instead pledge themselves to a Kindite man in a pact never ratified by the people of authority and judgment? Because it was a lapse and a reckless moment, it unleashed great turmoil in which multitudes perished. To Allah we belong and to Him we return.

Ayyūb ibn al-Qirriyyah (2)—al-Qirriyyah being his mother, while his father was Yazīd ibn Qays ibn Zurārah ibn Muslim al-Namrī al-Hilālī—was an illiterate Bedouin whose eloquence, clarity and rhetorical power became proverbial. He accompanied al-Ḥajjāj and later visited ʿAbd al-Malik. Al-Ḥajjāj then sent him as an envoy to Ibn al-Ashʿath, who told him, “If you do not rise and preach a sermon deposing al-Ḥajjāj, I will strike off your head.” Ayyūb complied and stayed with him. When al-Ḥajjāj prevailed he summoned Ayyūb; several exchanges took place between them until, in the end, al-Ḥajjāj had him beheaded. He later regretted the deed, but regret is useless when it comes too late, as the poet said: “She bestowed affection when affection could no longer avail.”

Ibn ʿAsākir records him in his History, and Ibn Khallikān, in his Biographical Dictionary, gives a lengthy entry replete with fine anecdotes. He notes that “al-Qirriyyah,” with a kasrah on the qāf and a doubled yāʾ, was his grandmother, Jumāʿah bint Jusham. Ibn Khallikān adds that some people deny the very existence of Ayyūb, of the famed Majnūn Laylā, and of Ibn Abī al-ʿAqb, author of the epic—namely Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-ʿAqb; Allah knows best.

Rūḥ ibn Zinbāʿ (3) ibn Salamah al-Judhāmī, Abū Zurʿah—some say Abū Zinbāʿ—the Damascene; his home stood in Damascus on the outskirts