Abdullah ibn az-Zubair delivered a sermon once wherein he...

Abdullah ibn az-Zubair delivered a sermon once wherein he strongly condemned those responsible for killing Imam al-Husayn (ﻉ), his family and friends, describing Yazid as a shameless drunkard, a man who preferred to listen to songs rather than to the recitation of the Holy Qur’an, who preferred wine drinking over fasting and the company of his hunting party to any majlis where the Qur’an is explained.

Amr ibn Sa'd ibn al-as was then governor of Mecca, and he was quite ruthless in dealing with Abdullah ibn az-Zubair, keeping him under constant surveillance, sending spies to his meeting places and constantly harassing him. When Yazid heard about Ibn az-Zubair’s denunciations, he pledged to have him chained, so he dispatched some of his men with a silver chain, ordering them to tie Ibn az-Zubair with it.

His deputies passed by Medina on their way to Mecca and met with Marwan ibn al-Hakam who joined them in their effort to arrest Ibn az-Zubair, but the party failed in carrying out its mission, and more and more people pledged to assist Ibn az-Zubair against Yazid. Having come to know of such failure, Yazid called to his presence ten men from among the most prominent supporters of his bloody regime, and there are always those who support bloody regimes in every time and clime.

He ordered these ten men to meet with Ibn az-Zubair to dissuade him from rebelling. But they, too, failed in their attempt due to the public support Ibn az-Zubair was enjoying. Yazid now resorted to deposing Mecca’s governor Amr ibn Sa'd and appointing al-Walid ibn Utbah in his place, prompting Ibn az-Zubair to write Yazid to describe his newly appointed governor as an idiot who never listened to advice nor enjoyed any wisdom.

Yazid deposed al-Walid ibn Utbah and replaced him with Othman ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Sufyan, a young man who knew absolutely nothing about politics or diplomacy. The first action the new governor undertook was dispatching a fact finding committee to Damascus to ascertain all the rumours about Yazid being a corrupt bastard, a man unfit to rule.

Among the members of the mission were: Abdullah ibn Hanzalah al-Ansari[^2], Abdullah ibn Abu Amr al-Makhzami, al-Munthir ibn az-Zubair, and a good number of the most prominent men of Hijaz.