and time kept silent about them for a season, then when it found its voice it made them weep tears of blood.⦗1⦘

Yaḥyā ibn Khālid used to place Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah on a monthly stipend of one thousand dirhams. During his prostration Sufyān would pray for him, saying, “O Allah, he has spared me the burden of earning a living and freed me for worship, so see to his affair in the Hereafter.” When Yaḥyā died a companion of his saw him in a dream and asked, “What has Allah done with you?” He replied, “He forgave me because of Sufyān’s supplication.”

Yaḥyā ibn Khālid—may Allah have mercy on him—died in prison at al-Rāfiqah on the third of Muḥarram this year, at the age of seventy. His son al-Faḍl led the funeral prayer, and he was buried on the bank of the Euphrates.

In his pocket they found a slip of paper in his own handwriting: “The plaintiff and the defendant have already come forward with their report; the Judge is the Just Arbiter who never wrongs and has no need of evidence.” The note was taken to al-Rashīd; when he read it he wept the whole day, and for several days the sorrow was plain upon his face.

A poet said of Yaḥyā ibn Khālid:
“I asked the rain,
‘Are you free?’
It answered, ‘No—
I am the slave of Yaḥyā ibn Khālid.’
I asked, ‘Were you bought?’
It said, ‘No, I was inherited;
my bondage has been passed down
from forefather to forefather.’

[Then the year 191 AH began.]

In that year a man in the Sawād of Iraq named Tharwān ibn Saif rebelled, moving from town to town. Al-Rashīd sent Tawq ibn Mālik against him; Tawq routed him, wounded Tharwān, killed most of his followers, and wrote to the caliph announcing the victory.

That same year Abū al-Nidāʾ rose in Syria. Al-Rashīd dispatched Yaḥyā ibn Muʿādh against him and appointed him governor of the province.

That year snow fell in Baghdad.

Also in that year Yazīd ibn Mukhlad al-Hubayrī led ten thousand men in a raid against Byzantine territory. The Byzantines closed the mountain pass ahead of him and killed him together with fifty of his companions two stages from Ṭarsūs, while the rest of the force fled.

Al-Rashīd entrusted the summer expedition to Ḥarthamah ibn Aʿyan, placed thirty thousand men under his command—including Masrūr the chamberlain—and assigned him the funds for the campaign.

Al-Rashīd himself marched to al-Ḥadath⦗2⦘ so as to be near the frontier.

He then ordered the demolition of churches and monasteries, and required the ahl al-dhimmah (non-Muslim protected subjects) to distinguish themselves in their dress and appearance in Baghdad and elsewhere.