Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

The second contention: The remonstration of the people and their bemoaning
of the Umayyads. This although was a result of the previous point, but at the
same time it had prompted many of the Khulafāʾ to do the following: to appoint
the harshest of governors and the most cruel of them, and to unsheathe the
sword in combatting any opposition even if it be driven by people of knowledge
and stature. Hence Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah cited the following poem and informed
us of his feelings:
لقد بدلوا الحلم الذي في سجيتي فبدلت قومي غلظة بليان
They changed the forbearance that was my nature, so I treated my people
with harshness in place of leniency. 1
Likewise if one has to ponder over the sermons of Ziyād ibn Abīhi, Ḥajjāj and
others like them, the harshness and cruelty with which they treated people will
become clear.
This had created an atmosphere of fear which had overwhelmed the scholars
themselves.
The following is an excerpt from the Khuṭbah Batrāʾ (truncated sermon) 2 which
Ziyād ibn Abīhi delivered when he first entered Basrah:
وإني لقسم بالله آلخذن الولي بالولي،‏ والمقيم بالظاعن،‏ والمقبل بالمدبر،‏ والصحيح منكم بالسقيم،‏
حتى يلقى الرجل منكم أخاه فيقول:‏ انج سعد فقد هلك سعيد أو تستقيم لي قناتكم...‏ وأيم الله إن لي
فيكن لصرعى كثيرة،‏ فليحذر كل امرئ منكم أن يكون من صرعاي.‏
I swear by Allah that I will hold a relative accountable for a relative, a
resident person for a traveller, an advancing person for a fleeing person, a
healthy person for a sick person. To the extent that a time will come when
a person amongst you will meet his brother and say, “Attain safety, O Saʿd
1 I don’t know who said the poem. It appears in Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī 3/352; al-Kāmil fī al-Tārīkh 3/455.
2 It was named thus because he did not praise Allah in it. See: Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī 3/197.
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