If you fear Sulma's watchful eyes...

If you fear Sulma's watchful eyes, for sure Against her conniving you will never feel secure. He kept repeating these lines as he cast quick glances at the storage room.

Then he raised his voice so that Muslim could hear him saying, “Give it to me to drink even if my death lies therein.”[^14] It was then that ‘Ubaydullah turned to Hani and said, “Your cousin, on account of his sickness, is surely hallucinating.” Hani said, “Sharik has been hallucinating since he fell sick, and he does not know what he says.”[^15] Sharik, at a later time, asked Muslim, “What stopped you from killing him?” He said, “Two reasons: first, one hadith of the Messenger of Allah (S) narrated by ‘Ali (‘a) says, ‘Faith stops where murder begins; a faithful man does not murder others.'[^16] The second reason is Hani's wife.

She pleaded to me in the Name of Allah not to do so in her house, and she wept before my very eyes.” Hani said, “Woe unto her! She has killed me and killed her own self! That from which she fled, in it have I fallen.”[^17] Sharik died three days later. Ibn Ziyad performed the funeral prayers for him[^18], then he was buried at al-Thuwayya. When it became clear for Ibn Ziyad that Sharik used to instigate people to have him killed, he said, “By Allah!

I shall never perform the funeral prayers for anyone from Iraq! Had it not been for Ziyad's grave being in their land, I would have exhumed Sharik's grave.”[^19] The Shi’as kept meeting Muslim Ibn ‘Aqil secretly at Hani's house without attracting the attention of Ibn Ziyad, admonishing each other to keep it to themselves. Ibn Ziyad, therefore, could not know where Muslim was. He called Ma’qil, his slave, to meet him.

He gave him three thousand [dinars] and ordered him to meet the Shi’as and to tell them that he was a Syrian slave of Thul-Kila’, that Allah blessed him with loving of His Messenger (S), that it came to his knowledge that one of the members of (‘a) had come to that country, and that he had with him some money which he wanted to hand deliver to him. Ma’qil entered the grand mosque and saw Muslim Ibn ‘Awsajah al-Asadi offering his prayers.

Having seen him finish his prayers, he came close to him and made the above claim to him. Muslim prayed Allah to grant him goodness and success. He then accompanied him to the place where Muslim Ibn ‘Aqil was.