Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān also transmitted it, from his father, from Ayyūb, from Mālik ibn Aws ibn al-Ḥadathān, that ʿAlī said:
“The loose-robed youth will be the governor of the two garrison cities. He will wear their fleece, consume their greenery, put to death the nobles among their people; terror because of him will grow intense, sleeplessness widespread, and Allah will unleash him upon his very own followers.”
Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī said in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa ⦗1⦘: Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ informed us; Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Maḥbūb reported to us; Saʿīd ibn Masʿūd narrated to us; Yazīd ibn Hārūn told us; al-ʿAwām ibn Ḥawshab informed us; Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit narrated:
ʿAlī said to a man, “You will not die until you meet the lad of Thaqīf.”
The man asked, “And who is the lad of Thaqīf?”
ʿAlī replied, “It will be said to him on the Day of Resurrection, ‘Shield us from one of the corners of Hell.’ He is a man who will rule for twenty years, or for a little more than twenty. He will leave no sin against Allah uncommitted; were but a single transgression left, and a locked door stood between him and it, he would smash the door to perpetrate it. He will kill those who obey him just as he kills those who disobey him.”
Al-Ṭabarānī said ⦗2⦘: Al-Qāsim ibn Zakariyyā narrated to us; Ismāʿīl ibn Mūsā al-Suddī ⦗3⦘ narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn Mushir reported to us, from al-Ajlaḥ, from al-Shaʿbī, from Umm Ḥakīm bint ʿAmr ibn Sinān al-Jadaliyyah, who said:
Al-Ashʿath ibn Qays asked leave to enter upon ʿAlī, but Qanbar turned him away and bloodied his nose. ʿAlī came out and said, “What do you want with him, O Ashʿath? By Allah, had you provoked the slave of Thaqīf, the hairs on the small of your back would have bristled!”
Someone asked, “Commander of the Believers, who is the slave of Thaqīf?”
He replied, “A youth who will rule over them; there will not remain a single household among the Arabs without his having draped them in humiliation.”
They said, “How long will he rule?”
He answered, “Twenty years—if he lives that long.”
Al-Bayhaqī also said ⦗4⦘: Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ informed us; al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Ayyūb narrated to us; Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī related to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf al-Tinnīsī reported to us; ⦗Hishām⦘ ibn Yaḥyā al-Ghassānī ⦗5⦘ said:
ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz remarked, “If all the nations were to vie with one another in wickedness, each bringing forth its most wicked man, and we brought al-Ḥajjāj, we would surpass them all.”
Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh reported from ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Nujūd that he said, “There is not a single sanctity of Allah—exalted is He—that al-Ḥajjāj has left unviolated.” ⦗6⦘
The report “Among Thaqīf there will be a liar and a ruthless destroyer” has already been cited. We have explained that the liar is al-Mukhtār, who at first flaunted rafḍ (Shiʿi partisanship) while concealing outright disbelief. As for the ruthless destroyer, he is this al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf. He was a nāṣibī, harboring hatred for ʿAlī and his followers out of loyalty to the house of Marwān and the Banū Umayyah. He was a tyrannical despot, ever ready to shed blood on the slightest pretext, and hideous, outrageous statements—whose outward sense is unbelief—have been transmitted from him, as we have already noted. If, however, he repented of these and desisted