—and appoint you as a leader of prayer?”
He answered, “Yes.”

Al-Ḥajjāj continued, “Did I not make you a judge? Yet the people of Kūfah clamoured that only an Arab was fit for the bench, so I set up Abū Burdah and ordered him not to decide any case without you.”
He said, “Yes.”

“Did I not give you one hundred thousand (dirhams) to distribute among the needy?”
Again he replied, “Yes.”

“So what made you rise up against me?”
He answered, “A pledge of allegiance I had previously given to Ibn al-Ashʿath.”

Al-Ḥajjāj flew into a rage. “Was there not already a pledge to the Commander of the Believers upon your neck? Did you turn unbeliever when you rebelled against me?”

Saʿīd said, “I have not disbelieved since the day I first believed.”

Al-Ḥajjāj said, “Choose the manner in which I shall kill you.”
He replied, “You choose; retribution stands before you.”

Al-Ḥajjāj then ordered, “Guard, strike off his head.” This occurred in Ramadan of the year 95 AH at Wāsit; his grave is still visible and visited. When they killed him, so much blood gushed forth that al-Ḥajjāj was alarmed. He summoned a physician and asked about it. The man replied, “You slew him while his soul was still strong within him and his heart fully awake.”

It is related that al-Ḥajjāj was later seen in a dream. He was asked, “What has Allah done with you?” He said, “For every man I killed, He killed me once, and for Saʿīd ibn Jubayr He killed me seventy-two times.” Allah knows best (1).

Ibn Jarīr (2) reports: I was informed by Abū Ghassān Mālik ibn Ismāʿīl who said, “I heard Khalaf ibn Khalīfah relate from a man who said: When al-Ḥajjāj killed Saʿīd ibn Jubayr and his head was severed, it proclaimed the declaration of divine oneness three times—once audibly and, on the other two occasions, in the same words but less distinctly.”

Abū Bakrah al-Bāhilī (3) said: I heard Anas ibn Abī Shaykh relate that when Saʿīd ibn Jubayr was brought to al-Ḥajjāj, the governor exclaimed, “May Allah curse the son of the Christian woman”—meaning Khālid al-Qasrī, who had sent him from Mecca—“Could I not have found out where he was? By Allah, I even knew the very house he was staying in at Mecca!” Then he turned to Saʿīd and asked, “O Saʿīd, what made you rebel against me?” He replied, “May Allah set the governor aright; I am but a Muslim who sometimes errs and sometimes is correct.” Al-Ḥajjāj’s mood lifted and his face brightened, and he hoped to release him. Yet he questioned him again, and Saʿīd said, “It was merely a pledge of allegiance upon my neck.” At that al-Ḥajjāj became enraged, and the matter ended in his execution (4).

ʿAttāb ibn Bishr (5) narrates from Sālim al-Aftaṣ: Saʿīd ibn Jubayr was brought to al-Ḥajjāj while the governor was about to mount his horse and already had one foot in the stirrup. He declared, “By Allah, I will not mount until you have taken your seat in the Fire. Strike off his head!” So they struck off his head. Thereupon al-Ḥajjāj’s mind became confused; he kept repeating, “Our shackles, our shackles!” Thinking he meant the fetters that had been on Saʿīd, they severed Saʿīd’s legs midway down the shins and took away the chains.