So Hisham wrote back to him: “May Allah make my death come before yours, and my children before your children, for there is no good in life after you.”

Yazid was deeply attached to one of his favourite concubines named Ḥabāba—some pronounce the first b with emphasis, though the more correct reading softens it—and her personal name was al-ʿĀliya. She was strikingly beautiful. During the reign of his brother Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, he had bought her from ʿUthmān ibn Sahl ibn Ḥunaif for four thousand dinars.

His brother Sulayman said to him, “I was on the verge of placing Yazid under guardianship (1),” so Yazid sold her.

When the caliphate later devolved upon him, his wife Saʿda asked one day, “O Commander of the Faithful, is there anything of this world that still lingers in your heart?” He replied, “Yes—Ḥabāba.” His wife thereupon purchased her for him, dressed and adorned her, seated her behind a curtain, and again asked, “O Commander of the Faithful, is there anything of this world that still lingers in your heart?” He answered, “Did I not tell you it is Ḥabāba?” She responded, “Here is Ḥabāba,” brought the girl out, left the two of them alone, and both the slave-girl and the wife enjoyed his favour.

One day he said, “I long to seclude myself with Ḥabāba in a palace for a season, with no one else present.” He did just that: he brought Ḥabāba into a palace where no one else was admitted, lavishly furnished with splendid carpets and luxurious hangings. While he was with her there, in perfect ease and delight, and grapes lay before them from which they were eating, he playfully tossed a pomegranate seed—another report says a grape—at her as she laughed; she choked on it and died.

For several days he remained beside her, kissing and caressing her although she was dead, until her body decayed and gave off a stench. Only then did he order her burial, and even that with great reluctance. After she was buried, he stayed by her grave for a number of days, distraught, and then returned home.

He later went back to her grave, stood over it and recited:

If ever the soul should cease to long for you or give up youthful fire,
It would forget you only out of hopelessness, never through steadfast desire.

And every dear friend who visits me (2) will surely say,
“For your sake this mound is destined—be it today or tomorrow’s day.”

He then returned. He never left his house again until his own bier was carried out; he had been stricken with consumption (tuberculosis) (3).

This took place in the Sawād—the cultivated land of the Jordan—on Friday, five days remaining of Shaʿbān in that same year, namely 105 AH.

According to the most widely accepted view, his caliphate lasted four years and one month, though some say it was shorter. His age was thirty-three; others say thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-eight, or thirty-nine, and some maintain he reached forty. Allah knows best.