El-Hajj4j* was appointed ruler over the two sacred

* El-Hajjclj-ibn-Yusuf of the tribe of Thakif, and Farigha
daughter of el-Hamim, appears by all accounts to have been
one of the most tyrannical and bloodthirsty monsters that ever
held the lives of others in their power. Arabian histori'ans relate
that at his birth he was deformed, and that he refused to allow
either his mother or any other woman to suckle him. Then the
devil took upon himself the form of el-Hdrith-ibn-Kaldah, a
celebrated Arab physician, who died soon after the promulgation
of el-Isldm, and came to the parents of el-Hajjaj in their distress
and perplexity, and prescribed for the child as follows : " Slay
for him a blacfc goat, and let him lick its blood. Then slay for
him a black serpent, and let him lap its blood, and also anoint
his face with it for three days." On the fourth day, they say the
child accepted his natural food. But the consequence of this
treatment was that he could not refrain from blood-shedding.
He even said of himself, that his greatest enjoyment was to kill
and to commit actions which no other could. He died after for
fifteen days suffering agonies from an internal cancer, inA.H. 95,
at the age of fifty-three or fifty-four. He was buried at el-W4sit,
a city which he had built between eI-Bd.srah and el-Kufah, and
wherein he had died ; but his tomb was afterwards levelled to

M



IS2 'ILAM-EN-NAS.
