but Bakkār ibn Musʿab ibn Thābit ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr interrupted, saying:

“Commander of the Faithful, do not let this man’s words beguile you. He is a defiant rebel; what you hear from him is nothing but deceit and malice. He has ruined our city and openly stirred up insubordination there.”

Yaḥyā replied, “And who are you—may Allah grant you well-being? Your father only emigrated to Madinah by the favor of my forefathers and those of this man.”

Then Yaḥyā continued, “Commander of the Faithful, when all is said and done the people are only we and you. By Allah, Commander of the Faithful, this very man came to me when my brother Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh had been killed, saying, ‘May Allah curse his slayer,’ and he recited to me nearly twenty verses of lament. He added, ‘If you rise to claim this cause, I shall be the first to pledge allegiance to you. What prevents you from going to Baṣrah when our hands are with you?’”

At this, Hārūn al-Rashīd’s face changed color, as did that of the Zubayrī. The latter denied the charge and began to swear the most emphatic oaths that Yaḥyā was lying.

Al-Rashīd was perplexed and asked Yaḥyā, “Do you remember any part of the elegy?”

“Yes,” he said, and he recited a portion of it. The Zubayrī’s denial only grew stronger.

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh then said to him, “Say: ‘If I am lying, I renounce Allah’s power and strength, and Allah consigns me to my own power and strength.’” He refused to swear in that form, but al-Rashīd pressed him until he did. He had scarcely left the caliph’s presence when Allah struck him with paralysis, and he died on the spot. It is also said that his wife smothered his face with a cushion, and thus Allah killed him.

Afterward al-Rashīd released Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh and bestowed on him one hundred thousand dinars.

It is also reported that his imprisonment lasted only part of a day—others say three days—and that the total amount of money he received from al-Rashīd reached four hundred thousand dinars from the public treasury. He lived only one month after all this and then died (may Allah have mercy on him).

In that same year a fierce turmoil erupted in Syria between the Nizariyya—namely, the Qays—and the Yamaniyya—namely, the Yaman. This was the first outbreak of strife between the two confederations in Ḥawrān, where Qays and Yaman now revived their pre-Islamic feuds. A great many were killed that year.

The overall governorship of Syria on behalf of al-Rashīd was held by his cousin Mūsā ibn ʿĪsā—some say ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAlī; Allah knows best. The specific governorship of Damascus was in the hands of Sindi ibn Sahl, one of the freedmen of Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr. When the rebellion flared, he demolished the wall of Damascus for fear that Abū al-Haytham al-Mirrī, head of the Qaysiyya, might seize the city. Sindi was notably ugly in appearance.

Al-Jāḥiẓ relates: “He would not make the muleteer, the sailor, or the weaver swear an oath, saying, ‘Their word is accepted’; as for the porter and the Qurʾān schoolmaster, he would first seek Allah’s guidance.” He died in 204 AH.

When the situation worsened, al-Rashīd dispatched Mūsā ibn Yaḥyā ibn Khālid with a group of military commanders and senior secretaries. They reconciled the people, the uprising subsided, and affairs in Syria were set right (1). They brought a number of the leading instigators to Dār al-Salām (Baghdad), where al-Rashīd referred their case to Yaḥyā ibn Khālid, who pardoned them and set them free.

Concerning this, one of the poets said:

Syria has raged with a fury
That whitens a suckling child’s hair