Then the year 101 AH began.
During it, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab escaped from prison when word reached him that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz had fallen ill. He had arranged with his retainers that they meet him with horses at a certain spot—others said with camels (1). He left his place of confinement with a group of supporters, accompanied by his wife ʿAtikah bint al-Furat al-ʿAmiriyyah. When his servants arrived, he mounted their riding animals and set off.
He wrote to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz: “By Allah, I did not leave your prison until news of your illness reached me. Had I hoped for your recovery, I would not have departed; but I fear Yazid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, for he is threatening to kill me.”
Yazid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik used to say, “If authority comes to me, I will surely cut off a part of Yazid ibn al-Muhallab” (2). The reason was that, when Yazid ibn al-Muhallab governed Iraq, he punished his in-laws from the family of Abu ʿAqil, the household of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi. Yazid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik was married to [Umm al-Hajjaj] (3), the daughter of Muhammad ibn Yusuf, [the brother of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf] (3). From her he had his son al-Walid ibn Yazid, the profligate who would later be killed, as will be mentioned.
When ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz learned that Yazid ibn al-Muhallab had escaped from prison, he said, “O Allah, if he intends evil for this ummah, protect them from his harm and turn his plot back upon himself.”
The illness continued to worsen for ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz until he died at Khunāṣirah, a locality by the Monastery of Samʿan between Ḥamāh and Aleppo, on a Friday; some say on a Wednesday, five days before the end of Rajab of this year—that is, the year 101 AH—at the age of thirty-nine years and some months, though others maintain he had passed forty by a few months. Allah knows best.
According to several authorities, his caliphate lasted two years, five months, and four days. He was a fair arbiter, a just and devout imam—pious and God-fearing—whom no blame in Allah’s cause could deter. May Allah have mercy on him.