So restrain yourselves or else I will drive you away with the support of an army...

So restrain yourselves or else I will drive you away with the support of an army, severer than the [forces] of the Dailamites.[^1],[^2] [^1]: Al-Tabari (5:469): “[Abu Mikhnaf says:] ‘Abd al-Rahman bin Jundab al-Azdi narrated to me that…” [^2]: Al-Tabari: The reason Ibn al-Hurr brings in the example of the Dailamites is because of the valour they exhibited during the battles of resistance, after the fall of the Sasanid dynasty. He was a follower of ‘Uthman.

When [‘Uthman] was assassinated, Ibn al-Hurr left Kufah and went to Mu’awiyah. He remained there until the [martyrdom] of ‘Ali (as) (5:128). Thereafter, he returned to Kufah. When Hujr [bin ‘Adiyy] was arrested, Ibn al-Hurr wished that if only five to ten men had helped him, he could have saved Hujr and his companions (5:271).

When al-Husayn (as) invited him to join him, he said: “By Allah, I only left Kufah out of dislike that you may enter it while I am there.” Al-Husayn (as) said: “If you are not [intending] to help us, then [at least] fear Allah in that you should be among those who fight us; for by Allah, one who hears our call [for help] but does not come to our help, is, indeed, going to perish” (5:407).

After the death of Yazid and the flight of Ibn Ziyad and during the uprising of Mukhtar, Ibn al-Hurr went to Madain with 700 horsemen, collecting money [from the people]. Mukhtar detained his wife in Kufah and told her: “I am going to kill his companions” (5:129). Ibn al-Hurr later joined Mus’ab bin al-Zubair and fought against Mukhtar (5:105). Ibn al-Hurr is the one who suggested to Mus’ab, after Mukhtar was killed, to kill the non-Arabs among [Mukhtar’s] followers and leave the Arabs.

And Mus’ab did so (5:116). Then, Mus’ab feared him for his own life, so he imprisoned him. A group from the Madhhij interceded with him on his behalf, so he freed him. Thereafter, [Ibn al-Hurr] rose against him (5:131). He later joined ‘Abd al-Malik bin Marwan. The latter sent him to Kufah at a time when [the city] was under the governer of Ibn al-Zubair. So [Ibn al-Hurr] fought him in the year 68 H and killed him (5:135).

We made some mention of his life when giving the account of his meeting with the Imam (as) at Qasr Bani Muqatil, on the way to Karbala’. Previous…