He went on: One of the people of knowledge related to me that it was said to al-Ḥasan, “Al-Ḥajjāj uttered such-and-such when death approached.” He asked, “Did he really say that?” They replied, “Yes!” He said, “Then what possible good could it do him now?” (1)

Abu al-ʿAbbās al-Murrī reported—through al-Riyāshī from al-Aṣmaʿī—that when death drew near, al-Ḥajjāj began to recite:
O Lord, my foes have sworn and sworn in earnest
That I am surely counted with the people of the Fire;
Do they swear in blind ignorance? Woe to them!
How little they know of the Almighty’s boundless pardon. (2)

When this was conveyed to al-Ḥasan he said, “By Allah, if he is saved it will be on account of those two lines.” Others added that al-Ḥajjāj also said:
When masters see their slaves grow gray, they set them free—
they emancipate them with the kindness of the righteous;
And You, my Creator, are worthier of such generosity:
I have grown gray in Your servitude, so free me from the Fire!

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā said: Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Taymī narrated to us that when al-Ḥajjāj died no one knew of it until a slave-girl appeared, weeping, and declared, “Behold, the feeder of multitudes (the slayer of orphans, the widower of women), the splitter of skulls, the lord of the people of Syria, has died.” She then recited:
Today even those who hated us will show us mercy,
And today those who feared us will feel secure. (3)

ʿAbd al-Razzāq related (4)—from Maʿmar, from Ibn Ṭāwūs, from his father—that he had several times been told of al-Ḥajjāj’s death; when the news was finally confirmed he recited, “So the last remnant of the wrongdoing people was cut off, and all praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds” (al-Anʿām 6:45).

More than one transmitter also reported that when al-Ḥasan received the glad tidings of al-Ḥajjāj’s death he prostrated in gratitude to Allah—may He be exalted—and, having been in hiding, he emerged (5). He said, “O Allah, make him die and remove from us his legacy.”

Hammād ibn Abī Sulaymān said: When I informed Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī of al-Ḥajjāj’s death, he wept out of joy.

Abu Bakr ibn Abī Khaythamah reported: Sulaymān ibn Abī Shaykh narrated to us—Ṣāliḥ ibn Sulaymān narrating—that Ziyād ibn al-Rabīʿ ibn al-Ḥārith told the prisoners, “Al-Ḥajjāj will die of this illness on such-and-such a night.” When that night arrived, the prisoners did not sleep for joy; they remained awake, waiting to hear the public mourner announce the death.

That was on the night of the twenty-seventh of Ramaḍān; others said it was five nights before the end of Ramaḍān, and still others said it occurred in Shawwāl.