open this door, the caliph of our own time would be even more deserving of being cursed, for he commits reprehensible acts graver than those committed by Yazīd. He does this and does that.” He then began enumerating the caliph’s injustices (1), until the caliph said to him, “Pray for me, Shaykh,” and departed (2).
As for what Yazīd did to the people of al-Harrah: when they renounced their allegiance to him and expelled his deputies and clansmen (3), he repeatedly sent word to them demanding their obedience, but they refused. He therefore sent Muslim ibn Uqbah al-Murrī against them and ordered him, if he prevailed over them, to allow his army free rein in Medina for three [days] (4). This was the deed of Yazīd that people condemned most vehemently.
Hence Ahmad was asked, “Do you record hadith from Yazīd?”
He replied, “No—he is not worthy of that honor. Was he not the one who did what he did to the people of Medina?”
Yet he did not kill all the notables, nor did the number of those killed reach ten thousand,
(1) MSS N, M, and W read: “sins.”
(2) Ibn Rajab al-Hanbalī relates this incident in *al-Dhayl ala Tabaqāt al-Hanābila* (*Supplement to the Generations of the Hanbalis*), 1/356, in his biography of Abd al-Mughīth al-Harbī, 1/354–358. He was Abū al-Izz Abd al-Mughīth ibn Zuhayr ibn Alawī al-Harbī, born around AH 500 and deceased in AH 583. Ibn Rajab states that Abd al-Mughīth opposed reviling Yazīd ibn Muāwiya and wrote a book on the subject in response to Ibn al-Jawzī, who denounced Yazīd. Ibn al-Jawzī then wrote a refutation of Abd al-Mughīth—the work to which Ibn Taymiyya refers—entitled *al-Radd ala al-Muta'assib al-Anīd al-Māni min Dhamm Yazīd* (*A Refutation of the Obstinate Partisan Who Prohibits Censuring Yazīd*). For the biography of Abd al-Mughīth al-Harbī, see *Shadharāt al-Dhahab*, 4/275–276; and *al-Bidāya wa-al-Nihāya*, 12/328, where Ibn Kathīr states: “He authored a work on the merits of Yazīd in which he included strange and astonishing things”; see also *al-Alām*, 4/300. Regarding Ibn al-Jawzī’s book, my student Dr. Āmina Muhammad Nusayr states in her master’s thesis, *Ibn al-Jawzī wa-Ārā'uhu al-Kalāmiyya wa-al-Akhlāqiyya* (*Ibn al-Jawzī and His Theological and Ethical Views*), p. [0–9] 5, that several manuscript copies exist in Berlin, Baghdad, and Leiden in the Netherlands.
(3) MS W reads: “and his progeny.”
(4) “Three days”: thus in MSS A and B. All other manuscripts read: “three.”