your adversary before Allah.” He was then put to death, his neck severed from the back.

When this reached al-Ḥasan he prayed, “O Allah, Crusher of tyrants, crush al-Ḥajjāj!” No more than three days had passed before worms began to pour from al-Ḥajjāj’s belly, emitting a stench, and he died.

On another occasion Saʿīd said to al-Ḥajjāj—when the latter ordered his execution and laughed—so al-Ḥajjāj asked, “What makes you laugh?” He replied, “I laugh at how fiercely you are provoked by me while Allah still shows you forbearance.” ⦗1⦘

Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab ⦗2⦘ ibn Ḥazn ibn Abī Wahb ⦗3⦘ ibn ʿĀyidh ibn ʿImrān ibn Makhzūm al-Qurashī, Abū Muḥammad al-Madanī al-Makhzūmī, was—without qualification—the foremost of the Successors.

He was born two years after, and it is also said two years before, the beginning of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb’s caliphate; others said four years had already elapsed of it.

Al-Ḥākim Abū ʿAbd Allah’s statement that he met the Ten Promised Paradise is a mistake on his part—Allah knows best. Rather, he transmitted from them in mursal form, just as he often transmitted directly from the Prophet ﷺ. He narrated extensively from ʿUmar; some said he actually heard from him. He also narrated from ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, Saʿd, and Abū Hurayrah—whose daughter he had married ⦗4⦘—and he was the most knowledgeable of people regarding Abū Hurayrah’s hadith. He reported from many Companions, related to a number of the Successors, and to a host of scholars besides them.

Ibn ʿUmar said, “Saʿīd was one of the masters of precision.” ⦗5⦘

He was regarded as the most learned person on earth in his day, and he practiced continual fasting.

He said of himself, “The opening takbīr has not eluded me for fifty years, and I have performed forty pilgrimages.” ⦗6⦘

Al-Zuhrī said, “I kept his company for seven pilgrimage seasons, and I never thought that anyone possessed knowledge except him.” ⦗7⦘