“Choose between two! Either you fight without an Imam or you pledge allegiance (to Mu’awiya) with pledge of misguidance!”
Abasement and humiliation dominated them, so they answered him, saying: “Rather we fight without an Imam!”
Then they advanced towards the troops of the people of Sham and returned them to their ranks. As for Mu’awiya, he became very disordered. He wrote a letter to Qays to make him wish and to threaten him. However Qays answered him: “No, by Allah, you will not find me as you like. Only the sword and the spear are between me and you!”
When Mu’awiya despaired of him, he sent him a letter in which he cursed and threatened him. This is the text of the letter: “Surely you are a Jew. You are making yourself unhappy and killing yourself for that which is not yours. If the more beloved of the two parties to you overcame, he would forsake and desert you. If the more detested one of them to you overcame you, he would severely punish and kill you. Your father stringed (a bow) other than his bow and shot at other than his target. He made much cutting off and made a mistake in respect of the judgement. So his people deserted him. His day (death) reached him, and he died strange in Hawran. With Greetings”
Qays answered him: “You are an idol, and son of an idol! You unwillingly embraced Islam, timely followed it, and willingly withdrew from it. Allah has not placed for you a share in it. Your Islam is not old, and your hypocrisy is not new. You are still fighting against Allah and His Apostle. You are one of the parties of the polytheists, an enemy to Allah, to His Prophet, and to the faithful of His servants. You have mentioned my father. By my life, he stringed (no bow) but his own bow and shot at (no target) but his own target. However, those, to whom you are not like in glory, provoked against him. You have claimed that I and my father are Jews, while you and the people have come to know that I and my father are the enemies of the religion from which you withdrew (pre-Islamic beliefs) and are the supporters of the religion you followed and come to it (Islam). With Greetings.”
This letter has shown Mu’awiya’s fact and reality. When Mu’awiya read the letter, he became angry, and he wanted to write an answer to it, but his crafty, cunning minister (Amr bin al-‘Aas) prevented him from doing that, saying to him: “Surely if you wrote him (a letter), he would answer you with a (letter) severer than yours. If you left him, he would follow what people have followed.”
Mu’awiya regarded his viewpoint as correct so he turned away from strictness and violence.[1] He sent him a letter in which he has mentioned: “According to whose obedience are you fighting? The one to whom you had pledged allegiance has pledged allegiance to me!”
Qays was not satisfied with that, and he insisted on his opinion. However Mu’awiya was afraid of the trouble and of the development of the events, so he sent him a parchment and stamped at the bottom of the parchment. He said to the messenger: “Say to him: ‘Write on it whatever you wish!’” ‘Amr bin al-‘Aas was displeased with that, for it contained a kind of welcome to Qays. He turned to Mu’awiya and said to him: “Do not give him that! Fight him!”
Mu’awiya came to know that Amr bin al-‘Aas had harbored malice against Qays and that he was not sincere in what he advised him. So he answered him: “Slowly! We do not reach killing them unless a number from the people of Sham equal to their number should be killed. So there is no good in life after that. Surely, by Allah, I will not fight him until I find no escape from fighting him.”
The messenger handed the parchment to Qays and told him about Mu’awiya’s statement. Qays carefully considered the affair. He thought of it for a long time. At last he could find no escape from following what the people had followed. He had no forces with which he had to fight against Mu’awiya. There was no powerful person to whom he had to resort to get rid of the pledge of allegiance to Mu’awiya. Accordingly, he answered the messenger through accepting Mu’awiya’s summons. He wrote in the parchment about security for him and his followers. He asked nothing other than that.[2] However he refrained from meeting with Mu’awiya, for he had promised Allah that he would not meet with him unless there should be a sword and a spear between them. When Mu’awiya came to know of that, he ordered a sword and a spear to be brought between them in order that Qays might fulfill his oath, and do not break it. So Qays was ready to meet with him. He came and was surrounded by groups of people. The people looked at him while he was bowing his head, walking heavily, being unable to see his way because of sorrow and abasement, and sighing deeply. When he sat down, he turned to the groups of people and said to them: “O people, you have replaced evil by
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[1] Ibn Abi al-Hadeed, Sharh Nahj al-Balagha, vol.4, p.15. In his book Murujj al-Dhahab, vol. 2, p. 319, al-Mas‘udi has mentioned: “This speech occurred between Mo’awiya and Qays during the lifetime of (Imam Ali), the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. That was when Qays was his governor over Egypt.”
[2] Al-Kamil, vol. 3, p. 207. Al-Tabari, Tarikh, vol. 6, p. 94.