Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

Even after the demise of Ḥasan I, Ḥusayn I would still visit him and he
would gift him and offer him respect. 1
Similarly, when Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah and Ḥasan one day vied with another as to
who is better, his father asked him, and “Did you vie with Ḥasan?” he replied in
the affirmative, whereafter he said to him:
لعلك تظن أن أمك مثل أمه،‏ أو جدك كجده!‏ فأما أبوك وأبوه فقد تحاكما إلى الله فحكم لبيك على أبيه
You probably thinking that your mother is like his mother, or you
grandfather is like his grandfather. As for your father and his father, they
raised their case to Allah, and he decided in favour of your father over his
father. 2
Moving on, many of the Umayyads would designate the title Abū Turāb or Abū
al-Turāb (the father of sand) to ʿAlī I condescendingly, as though suggesting
that this title entailed disparaging him 3 and assuming that he disliked it. Ibn Ḥajr
al-ʿAsqalānī states:
كان أعداؤه ‏)يعني(‏ عليا يقولون:‏ أبو تراب ظنا منهم أنه يكرهها
His enemies (i.e. the enemies of ʿAlī) would call him Abū Turāb assuming
that he disliked it. 4
And Sahl ibn Saʿd I narrates that a person came to him and said:
هذا فالن أمير من أمراء المدينة يدعوك لتسب عليا على المنبر.‏ قال:‏ أقول ماذا؟ قال:‏ تقول له أبو
تراب...‏
1 Al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah 8/150.
2 Tārīkh Madīnah Dimashq 13/241; Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ 3/260.
3 Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3/1358; Fatḥ al-Bārī 10/588.
4 Nuzhah al-Albāb fī al-Alqāb 2/253.
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