Al-Asmaʿī said:
Abū ʿĀṣim al-Nabīl told us; Abū Ḥafṣ al-Thaqafī told us:
Al-Ḥajjāj once mounted the pulpit. He turned to his right and proclaimed, “Lo, al-Ḥajjāj is a disbeliever.” He then lowered his head and repeated, “Al-Ḥajjāj is a disbeliever.” Again he paused, turned to his left, and said, “Lo, al-Ḥajjāj is a disbeliever.” He did this several times, then concluded, “A disbeliever, O people of Iraq, in al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā.” ⦗1⦘

Hanbal ibn Isḥāq said:
Hārūn ibn Maʿrūf told us; Ḍumrah told us; Ibn Shawdhb told us, on the authority of Mālik ibn Dīnār, who said:
While al-Ḥajjāj was addressing us one day he said, “Al-Ḥajjāj is a disbeliever.” We asked, “What is the matter with him—what does he mean?” He replied, “Al-Ḥajjāj is a disbeliever in Wednesday and in the dapple-gray mule.”

Al-Asmaʿī also reported:
One day ʿAbd al-Malik said to al-Ḥajjāj, “There is no one who does not know his own fault, so describe yours.” He answered, “Excuse me, Commander of the Believers,” but ʿAbd al-Malik insisted. Al-Ḥajjāj then said, “I am obstinate, vindictive, and envious.” ʿAbd al-Malik retorted, “Nothing in Satan is worse than what you have just named.” ⦗2⦘
In another version he added, “Then there is kinship between you and Iblīs.”

In short, al-Ḥajjāj proved to be a scourge upon the people of Iraq because of their past sins: their rebellions against the imams, their failure to support them, their disobedience, opposition, and presumption against them.

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān said:
Abū Ṣāliḥ ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ related to us; Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ informed me, from Shurayḥ ibn ʿUbayd, from an informant who said:
A man came to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and told him that the people of Iraq had pelted their governor with stones. ʿUmar arose in anger, led us in prayer, and became confused in it, so that the congregation began saying, “Glory be to Allah, glory be to Allah.” When he finished he turned to the people and said, “Who here is from Syria?” One man stood, then another, and I was the third or fourth. He said, “People of Syria, prepare yourselves for Iraq, for Satan has laid his eggs there and hatched them. O Allah, confusion has been cast upon them, so cast confusion upon them. Hasten against them the lad of Thaqīf, who will rule them with the judgment of the Jāhiliyya, accepting nothing from their righteous and overlooking nothing from their wicked.” ⦗3⦘ We have transmitted the same report in the Musnad of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb through the isnād of Abū ʿAdhbah al-Ḥimṣī, likewise from ʿUmar.

ʿAbd al-Razzāq said:
Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān related to us from Mālik ibn Dīnār, from al-Ḥasan, who said that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib supplicated:
“O Allah, just as I entrusted them and they betrayed me, and I was sincere to them yet they deceived me, set over them the youth of Thaqīf—the loose-robed, swaggering one—who will consume their greenery, wear their fleece, and rule them by the judgment of pagan ignorance.”
Al-Ḥasan added, “At that time al-Ḥajjāj had not even been created.” ⦗4⦘