ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Biography of Imam `alĪ Ibn AbĪ-tĀlib Sa id Ibn Al- as Sa`id was the son of al-`As ibn Sa`id who was killed by `Ali (a.s) in the Battle of Badr. Sa`id spent his childhood, after being orphaned, under the care of `Uthman. After the conquest of Syria he moved there to live with Mu`awiyah. Later on he moved from Syria to al-Madinah. In 30 H when al-Walid was dismissed from the governorate of al-Kūfah, he was appointed in his place.

Sa`id was a self-centered, conceited and aggressive person. Ibn `Abd al-Barr writes: “Sa`id was cruel, vitriolic and aggressive.”[1] His conceit and cruelty is evident from one incident. Once he gathered some persons for the sighting of the `Id Crescent. He asked if some of them had sighted the moon. Hashim ibn `Utbah said that he had seen the moon and others said that they had not. Then Sa`id said that the one eyed person has sighted the moon and you have not been able to see it.!

Hashim had lost one of his eyes in the Battle of Yarmūk. He was angry at this style of speaking and asked why he was making a remark about his eye that he lost fighting in the Way of Allah! Saying this Hashim went home and people kept coming to him to confirm about the sighting of the Crescent. On the other hand Sa`id was angry and upset the way Hashim retorted. He sent some men to his house and got him beaten up and burned down his house.

When this information reached al-Madinah, Sa`d ibn Abi-Waqqas told `Uthman that this tyranny must be stopped forthwith. When no satisfactory reply was forthcoming, he wanted to burn down Sa`id’s house that was in al-Madinah. But on the intervention of `A’ishah he desisted from doing it. The period during which Sa`id was the governor, he used harsh, tyrannical methods with the people. He treated the bayt al-mal as his personal treasury and gave whatever he wanted to anyone.

He neither had Allah’s fear nor was there any accountability required by the center. If anyone raised a voice against him, he crushed it. His impunity became so much that, once, when al-Kūfah was full of important visitors, he said: [1] Al-Istī`āb, Vol 2, Page 9 “The land in Iraq is only for Quraysh (Banū-Umayyah)”[1] Malik Ibn al-Harith al-Ashtar could not keep quiet listening to this. He said that the lands that were conquered with their swords could not become the fiefs of your tribe.