Whenever the winds blow from the quarter
where Mayy’s people dwell, their very gusts awaken my longing;
A love that makes the eyes pour forth tears—
for every soul is drawn to the place where its beloved resides. (1)

[Then the year 118 AH began.]

In that year Muʿāwiyah and Sulaymān, the two sons of the Commander of the Believers Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, campaigned against the land of the Byzantines. During the same year a man called ʿAmmār ibn Yazīd—who later adopted the name Khidāsh—set out for Khurāsān and invited the people to recognize the caliphate of Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās. A great many responded to him, but when they had gathered around him he summoned them to the doctrine of the Khurramiyyah, those Zindiq heretics, (2) permitting them to share one another’s women and claiming that Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī had said as much—an outright lie against him. Allah then granted the authorities mastery over him: he was seized and brought before Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī, the governor of Iraq and Khurāsān. Khālid ordered that his hand be severed and his tongue torn out, (3) after which he was crucified. (4)

That same year the people were led in the pilgrimage by Muḥammad ibn Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl al-Makhzūmī, the governor of Medina, Mecca, and al-Ṭāʾif.

Some claimed that the governorship of Medina was held by Khālid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn al-Ḥārith ibn al-Ḥakam, but the sounder view is that he had been deposed and replaced by Muḥammad ibn Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl. The governorship of Iraq remained with Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī, while his brother Asad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī acted as his deputy over Khurāsān and its districts.

In this same year there occurred the death of:

ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās (5) ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the Qurayshi Hāshimite, Abū al-Ḥasan—some say Abū Muḥammad—and his mother