Through Abū Kurayb, from Ibn Abī Fudayk, from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Zayd ibn Saʿīd ibn Nufayl, from Muṣʿab ibn Muṣʿab, from al-Zuhrī, with the same wording.

I say: This ḥadīth is gharib and munkar. Muṣʿab ibn Muṣʿab ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf al-Zuhri has been spoken against, and ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Junayd declared him weak; similar criticism has been leveled at the one who narrates from him as well. Allah knows best.

In that same year Nuʿmān ibn Yazīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik led the ṣāʾifa (summer campaign) against the Byzantine lands.

And in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir of that year the Commander of the Believers,

Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān (1)

passed away.

[Account of his death and a brief biography—may Allah have mercy on him]

He is Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ ibn Umayyah ibn ʿAbd Shams, Abū al-Walīd, the Qurashi Umayyad Caliph from Damascus. His mother was Umm Hishām bint Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl al-Makhzumi. His residence in Damascus stood by the Gate of the Khawāṣṣīn; part of it today houses the madrasah of the martyr Nūr al-Dīn, known as the Great Nūriyya, and also called Dār al-Qabbābīn—that is, the quarter of the sellers of qibāb (tents). The whole district was once his home. Allah knows best.

He received the pledge of allegiance after his brother Yazīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, in accordance with Yazīd’s covenant, on Friday, with four days remaining in Shaʿbān of the year 105 AH. At that time he was thirty-four years old. Handsome and fair-complexioned, he had a slight squint and used to dye his hair black. He was the fourth of ʿAbd al-Malik’s sons to attain the caliphate. ʿAbd al-Malik had once dreamed that he urinated in the miḥrāb (prayer niche) four times; he sent someone to Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab to interpret it, and Saʿīd explained that four of his sons would rule. So it came to pass, with Hishām the last of them.

During his reign he was firm in judgment, avid for amassing wealth and thought miserly. He was intelligent and astute, alert to matters great and small, and endowed with forbearance and composure.

Once he insulted a nobleman, who retorted, “Will you abuse me while you are Allah’s vice-gerent on earth?” Hishām blushed and said, “Take retaliation from me in exchange for that—or reply in kind.” The man answered, “Then I would be a boor like you.” Hishām said, “Then accept compensation.” The man replied, “I will not.” Hishām said, “Then forgo it for Allah’s sake.” The man said, “It is for Allah, and then for you.” Whereupon Hishām declared, “By Allah, I shall never do the like again.”

Al-Aṣmaʿī relates that a man once addressed Hishām with harsh words, so he said to him, “Do you speak to me like this when I am your Caliph?!”

On another occasion he became angry with a man and said, “Be silent, or I will strike you with a lash.”