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Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 11 (2011)
had fled. 134 Later in the same year, Qutayba beheaded and crucified Nīzak
himself, with two of his fraternal nephews ‘beside a spring named Wakhsh
Khāshān at Iskīmisht’; the number of those beheaded on the same occasion is
said to have been either 700 or 12,000. 135 There are various stories about
Nīzak’s imprisonment prior to his execution. 136
29. When one of his companions deserted him for Sulaymān in 91/709–
10, Qutayba b. Muslim arrested a group of the traitor’s family (qawman min
ahl baytihi), killed them and cut off the hands and feet of others (faqatalahum
wa-qaṭaʿa aydiy ākharīn wa-arjulahum). 137
30. In 94/712–13, the new governor of Medina, ʿUthmān b. Ḥayyān al-
Murrī, ‘imprisoned and punished’ (ḥabasahum wa-ʿāqabahum) two Iraqis
before sending them, and the other Iraqis in Medina, to al-Ḥajjāj ‘in neck
collars’ (fī jawāmiʿ). ʿUthmān ‘pursued the heretics’ (atbaʿa ahl al-ahwāʾ)
and seized two Kharijites, Hayṣam and Manḥūr; the former either suffered
‘amputation’ (qaṭaʿahu), or, on the orders of al-Walīd, had his hand and foot
cut off before being killed. 138
31. In 94/712–13, al-Ḥajjāj executed Saʿīd b. Jubayr, one of two former
rebels who had been sent to him by the governor of Mecca. (The other was
imprisoned until al-Ḥajjāj died; a third had died en route to Iraq.) Saʿīd was
beheaded after an exchange about the pledge of allegiance; both his legs
were then cut off – perhaps as a result of a misunderstanding of al-Ḥajjāj’s
words. 139
32. A cluster of traditions credits the caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r.
717–20) with seeking to restrict the use of amputation and execution by his
governors, while reserving authority on the matter to himself. One version of
the relevant decree is:
…and do not bring about an innovation in amputation and ‘crucifixion’
without consulting me (wa-lā tuḥdithū ḥadathan fī qaṭʿ wa-ṣalb ḥattā
tuʾāmirūnī) …140 134 al­Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, ii, 1218.
135 Ibid., ii, 1222–4. Cf. al­Balādhurī, Futūḥ, 420.
136 al­Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, ii, 1224–5.
137 al­Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkh, ii, 354; cf. al­Ṭabarī, ibid., ii, 1218, 1289–90 and al­
Ṭabarī, The History of al­Ṭabarī Volume xxiv: The Empire in Transition, tr. D. S.
Powers (New York, 1989), 13, n. 57.
138 al­Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, ii, 1258; Anonymous, Kitāb al­ʿUyūn, 16.
139 al­Ṭabarī, ibid., ii, 1264f.
140 al­Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkh, ii, 366. Cf. Abou El Fadl, Rebellion, 59–60.