Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

Umayyads, for they were killed and they were mercilessly banished. 1 What the
Hashimids had did to one another is far greater than even what Yazīd had did to
them. 2
Some Shīʿah writers have also alluded to this reality. 3
This suffocating situation which the Alawids were suffering from: murder,
imprisonment, confinement, banishment and placing of spies, etc., had caused
some of them to relish the memories of the Umayyads and their goodness and
entertain the notion that their era, despite all its flaws, was lesser in evil than the
era of the Abbasids. Hence one of them said:
لقد كنا نقمنا على بني أمية ما نقمنا،‏ فما بنو العباس أخوف لله منهم،‏ وإن الحجة على بني العباس لوجب
منها عليهم،‏ ولقد كان للقوم ‏)يعني بني أمية(‏ أحالم ومكارم وفواضل ليست لبي جعفر
We despised the Umayyads previously, but the Abbasids are not more
fearful of Allah than them. In fact the evidence against the Abbasids is
more binding upon them. Indeed the people (i.e. the Umayyads) enjoyed
intellect, feats and merits which Abū Jaʿfar does not enjoy. 4
And a poet has said:
يا ليت جور بني مروان عاد لنا
وليت عدل بني العباس في النار
If only the oppression of the Umayyads returned for us, and if only the
justice of the Abbasids was in hell-fire. 5
1 Al-Khuḍrī: Al-Dawlah al-Umawiyyah 1/150. Also see: al-ʿIlāqāt bayn al-ʿAlawiyyīn wa al-ʿAbbāsiyyīn p.
73.
2 Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah 4/553.
3 Al-Darajāt al-Rafīʿah p. 8.
4 Al-Wāfī bi al-Wafayāt 17/200.
5 Abū al-ʿAṭāʾ al-Sindī. See: Kitāb al-Aghānī 17/333; Muḥāḍarāt al-Udabāʾ 1/223.
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