Among those who narrated from him were Anas ibn Mālik, Thābit al-Bunānī, Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, Mālik ibn Dīnār, Jawād ibn Mujālid, Qutaybah ibn Muslim, and Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah. This is stated by Ibn ʿAsākir (1), who adds:

“He owned several houses in Damascus, among them the House of the Narrator near the palace of Ibn Abī Ḥadīd. ʿAbd al-Malik appointed him over the Ḥijāz, where he killed Ibn al-Zubayr; afterwards he removed him from that post and made him governor of Iraq. Later al-Ḥajjāj came to Damascus as a delegate to ʿAbd al-Malik.”

Ibn ʿAsākir also transmits through the chain of al-Mughīra ibn Muslim—“Sālim ibn Qutaybah ibn Muslim related to us”—who said (2): “I heard my father say: Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf once addressed us and spoke about the grave. He kept repeating, ‘It is the house of loneliness, the house of estrangement,’ until he wept and made those around him weep. Then he said, ‘I heard the Commander of the Believers ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān say: I heard Marwān, in a sermon, say: ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān addressed us and said: The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—never looked at a grave, nor mentioned it, without weeping.’” This report has corroboration in Sunan Abī Dāwūd (3) and elsewhere.

He likewise cites, through Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār: “Sayyār related to us from Jaʿfar, from Mālik ibn Dīnār, who said: One day I entered upon al-Ḥajjāj and he said, ‘Abū Yaḥyā, shall I not relate to you a fine ḥadīth from the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him?’ I replied, ‘Indeed.’ He said: ‘Abū Burdah narrated to me from Abū Mūsā that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said, “Whoever has a need that he wishes Allah to fulfill, let him beg for it after a prescribed prayer.”’ This ḥadīth too has supporting narrations from Faḍālah ibn ʿUbayd and others in the Sunan collections and the Musnads (4)—and Allah knows best.

Al-Shāfiʿī said: I heard someone relate that al-Mughīra ibn Shuʿbah entered upon his wife while she was picking her teeth—that is, using a tooth-stick (siwāk) to remove what was between them—and this was early in the morning. He said, ‘By Allah, if you have already taken breakfast, you are like a lowly grazing animal; and if you are removing something left in your mouth from last night, then you are filthy!’ He thereupon divorced her. She replied, ‘By Allah, nothing of what you imagine is true. Rather, I rose early to do what a free woman commonly does with the siwāk, and a splinter of it remained in my mouth, so I was trying to remove it.’

Al-Mughīra then said to Yūsuf, the father of al-Ḥajjāj, ‘Marry her, for she is fit to bear a man who will be eminent.’ So Yūsuf married her.

Al-Shāfiʿī continued: I was informed that when Abū al-Ḥajjāj consummated the marriage he lay down to sleep, and it was said to him in a dream, ‘How quickly you have conceived the Exterminator!’ (5)