Among those who had been jailed was a Bedouin who had been caught urinating at the foot of the rampart of the city of Wasit. When he was set free he declaimed:
Once we have gone beyond the city of Wasit,
we defecate and pray without being called to account. (1)
Despite such ruthless severity, al-Hajjaj extracted very little from the land-tax of Iraq.
Ibn Abi al-Dunya and Ibrahim al-Harbi related: Sulayman ibn Abi Shaykh (2) narrated to us, saying that Salih ibn Sulayman reported: ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz said, “If all the nations competed in wickedness, each producing its most wicked man, and we produced al-Hajjaj, we would surpass them all. Al-Hajjaj was fit for neither this world nor the Hereafter. He took charge of Iraq when it was at the height of its prosperity, yet he reduced its revenue to forty million. My governors have handed over to me this year eighty million, and if I live until next year I hope they will pay me what was paid to ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab: one hundred and ten million.” (3)
Abu Bakr ibn al-Muqriʾ said: Abu ʿUrubah narrated to us, ʿAmr ibn ʿUthman narrated to us, my father narrated to us: I heard my grandfather say that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz wrote to ʿAdiyy ibn Artah: “I have heard that you are adopting the ways of al-Hajjaj; do not adopt his ways. He used to pray outside the appointed times, collect zakat unjustly, and was even more negligent in other matters.” (4)
Yaʿqub ibn Sufyan said: Saʿid ibn Asad narrated to us, Ḍumrah narrated to us, from al-Rayyan ibn Muslim: ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz dispatched the family of Abu ʿAqil—the household of al-Hajjaj—to the governor of Yemen and wrote to him: “To proceed: I have sent you the family of Abu ʿAqil, the vilest household among the Arabs. Disperse them throughout the districts in proportion to their lowliness before Allah and before us. Peace be upon you.” It was for this reason that he banished them. (5)
Al-Awzaʿi said: I heard al-Qasim ibn Mukhaimara say, “Al-Hajjaj was undoing the very bonds of Islam,” and he went on to relate an incident. (6)
Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyash reported from ʿAsim: “There was no sanctity of Allah that al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf failed to violate.” (7)
Yahya ibn ʿIsa al-Ramli reported from al-Aʿmash: People differed about al-Hajjaj, so they asked Mujahid, who replied, “Are you asking about that old unbeliever?!”