Al-Madaʾinī relates: Al-Ḥajjāj was brought two prisoners from the forces of Ibn al-Ashʿath and ordered that they both be executed. One of them said, “I have a claim upon you.”
Ḥajjāj asked, “What claim is that?”
The man replied, “One day Ibn al-Ashʿath spoke against your mother, and I answered him back.”
Ḥajjāj said, “Who can testify for you?”
He answered, “This companion of mine.” Ḥajjāj questioned the second man, who said, “Yes, it is true.”
Ḥajjāj then asked him, “What kept you from doing what he did?”
He replied, “My dislike for you.”
Ḥajjāj said, “Release this one for telling the truth, and that one for his deed.” (1)

Al-Wāqidī recounts that Ḥajjāj once announced throughout the city, “Whoever leaves his house after the last ʿIshāʾ prayer will be put to death.” One night a man was brought before him. Ḥajjāj asked, “What brought you out of your house at this hour after you heard the crier?”
The man replied, “By Allah, I will not lie to the governor. My mother is deathly ill and I have been with her for three days. At this hour she regained consciousness and said, ‘My son, I charge you to go to your wife and children, for they are distressed by your absence.’ I left her, whereupon the night patrol seized me and brought me to you.”
Ḥajjāj said, “We forbid you, yet you disobey us,” and ordered that his head be struck off.

A merchant was then brought. Ḥajjāj asked him, “What brought you out at this hour?”
He replied, “By Allah, I will not lie to you. A man had some silver with me. He stationed himself at my door and clung to me, saying, ‘I will not leave you until I receive my due.’ When this hour came he went into his house, shut the door, and left me outside. Then your patrol found me and brought me here.”
Ḥajjāj said, “Strike off his head.”

Another man was then brought in. Ḥajjāj asked, “What brought you out at this hour?”
He said, “I had been drinking with some people. When I became drunk I left them without knowing where I was going, and they brought me to you.”
Ḥajjāj said to a man beside him, “I think he is telling the truth,” and then ordered, “Release him,” so they set him free. (2)

Muḥammad ibn Ziyād reports from Ibn al-Aʿrābī, according to what reached him: A man of Banū Ḥanīfah named Jaḥdar ibn Mālik was a notorious brigand in the land of al-Yamāmah. Ḥajjāj wrote to his deputy there, rebuking and blaming him for failing to seize the man. The deputy continued to pursue him until he captured him and sent him to Ḥajjāj.

Ḥajjāj asked, “What drove you to what you were doing?”
He replied, “Daring of spirit, roughness of the ruler, and the savagery of the times. Yet, were the governor to test me, he would find me among the best of helpers and the noblest of horsemen—indeed, among the finest of his subjects. I have never met a rider without feeling myself fully his match.”
Ḥajjāj said, “We shall throw you into an enclosure that contains a vicious lion: if it kills you, it spares us your upkeep; if you kill it, we shall set you free.” He then consigned him to prison, fettering him and fastening his right hand to his neck, and wrote to his deputy in Kaskar to send a large, ferocious lion.

While in his cell Jaḥdar composed verses, grieving over his wife Salaymā, the mother of ʿAmr. Among them he said:

Does not the night unite Umm ʿAmr and me, drawing us close though parted we remain?
Indeed—and she beholds the crescent as I behold it, and daylight rises over her as it rises over me.