so I endured from them what you already know, and I have never ceased grappling with them until death itself almost felled me.
How many shocks of intimidation they stirred up—each one I heard; had anyone but me faced such terrors, he would have taken flight.
Whenever they resolved upon one of their misdeeds, I bared my head to them, never drawing a hood over it.
Had not some of their chieftains stood between them and me, wolves and hyenas would have torn my limbs apart.
He said: ʿAbd al-Malik then wrote back to him: “Follow your own judgment.” (1)
Al-Thawri related—on the authority of Muḥammad ibn al-Mustawrid al-Jumahī—that a thief was once brought before al-Ḥajjāj. Al-Ḥajjāj said to him, “You were in no need to commit a crime that would bring you before the judge and cost you one of your limbs.”
The man replied, “When means are scant, the soul grows unconcerned about destruction.”
Al-Ḥajjāj said, “You speak the truth. By Allah, if a fine excuse could annul a prescribed punishment, you would have merited it. Boy! A keen sword and a skilful executioner.” So he had the man’s hand severed. (2)
Abū Bakr ibn Mujāhid narrated—from Muḥammad ibn al-Jahm, from al-Farrāʾ—that al-Ḥajjāj once lunched with al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. When they had finished, al-Walīd invited him to drink nabidh. (3) Al-Ḥajjāj replied, “O Commander of the Faithful, whatever you declare lawful is lawful; yet I forbid it to the people of Iraq and those under my authority, and I dislike to contradict the words of the righteous servant: ‘I do not desire to differ from you in what I forbid you’ (Hud 11:88).” (4)
ʿUmar ibn Shabbah reported, on the authority of his elders, that ʿAbd al-Malik wrote to al-Ḥajjāj, reproaching him for his extravagance in spending and for the shedding of blood. He wrote: “Wealth belongs to Allah; we are merely its treasurers. Withholding a rightful due and bestowing an unlawful grant are equally blameworthy.” At the foot of the letter he added these verses:
If you will not abandon the matters I loathe
nor seek my good pleasure in what I require;
If you do not fear what a man like you should fear—
fleeing to Allah from it, though he who scatters pearls also gathers them—
Then if you perceive in me a Qurashi lapse,
remember how often the drinker has choked on water;
And if you witness in me an Umayyad leap,
know that I am master of both this and that.
So do not overstep what reaches you from me; but if you do,
be sure that a day will come when the mourners wail over you. (5)