measures of wine while still mounted on his horse, accompanied by two of his companions; when he rode off he ordered that the wine-seller be given five hundred dinars.

Judge Abū al-Faraj said: “The reports about al-Walīd are many; the historians have compiled them both in comprehensive works and as individual pieces. I myself have gathered something of his conduct and legacy, together with the poetry in which he flaunted his brazenness, boorishness and folly—his jesting, licentiousness, the triviality of his religion, and the open atheism he voiced toward the Noble Qur’an and the disbelief he showed in the One who revealed it and in the one upon whom it was revealed. I have countered his paltry verses with sound poetry, his falsehood with manifest and noble truth, seeking thereby the good-pleasure of Allah—Exalted is He—and the hope of His forgiveness.”

Abū Bakr ibn Abī Khaythama said: Sulaymān ibn Abī Shaykh narrated to us; Ṣāliḥ ibn Sulaymān narrated to us; he said: “Al-Walīd ibn Yazīd intended to perform the Hajj and declared, ‘I will drink wine on top of the Kaʿbah.’ A group resolved to assassinate him when he set out. They came to Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī and asked him to join them, but he refused. They said, ‘Then at least keep our secret.’ He replied, ‘As for that, yes.’ He then went to al-Walīd and said, ‘Do not depart, for I fear for your safety.’ Al-Walīd asked, ‘From whom do you fear for me?’ He answered, ‘I will not name them to you.’ Al-Walīd said, ‘If you do not tell me, I will send you to Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar.’ He replied, ‘Even if you do send me to Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar.’ So al-Walīd dispatched him to Yūsuf, who punished him until he killed him (1).”

Ibn Jarīr related (2) that when he refused to identify the conspirators al-Walīd first imprisoned him, then handed him over to Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar to extract from him the revenues of Iraq, and Yūsuf killed him.

It is also said that when Yūsuf came to al-Walīd he purchased from him the person of Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī for fifty million, in order to free al-Walīd of him; yet he continued to punish him and squeeze money from him until he killed him. The people of Yemen were enraged at his death and rose in revolt against al-Walīd.

Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār said: Muṣʿab ibn ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; he said: I heard my father say, “I was in the presence of al-Mahdī when al-Walīd ibn Yazīd was mentioned. A man in the gathering said, ‘He was a zindīq.’ Al-Mahdī replied, ‘Allah’s caliphate is far too exalted for Him to place it in the hands of a zindīq.’”

Aḥmad ibn ʿUmayr ibn Jawṣāʾ al-Dimashqī said: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥasan narrated to us; al-Walīd ibn Muslim narrated to us; Ḥuṣayn ibn al-Walīd narrated to us, from al-Azhar ibn al-Walīd, who said: I heard Umm al-Dardāʾ say—[I heard Abū al-Dardāʾ say]: “When the young Umayyad caliph is slain, wrongfully, between Syria and Iraq, obedience will ever after be treated with contempt and blood will be spilled upon the face of the earth (3) without right (4).”