ADMINISTRATIONpractice also seems to have been introduced under Mu'awiya. Again,
it is Ziyad who is said to have told his close relatives to choose whether
they wanted to be admitted along with the general public or privately.
Those who chose the public audience were not to approach him in
private, and those who chose private admission were not to approach
him in public.l99
One of the main purposes of the governor's majlis was the admin-
istration of ad hoc justice by deciding private disputes, hearing com-
plaints against himself or his officials, and punishing offenders, crim-
inals, and rebels. In a famous passage of his inaugural khutba at Basra
in 665, Ziyad had promised exact retribution in the form of punish-
ments to fit the crime. A murderer who drowned his victim would be
drowned, and an arsonist would be burned to death. A burglar who
broke into houses would have his heart cut out, and a grave robber
would be buried alive.20o These may serve as rather extreme examples
of the general attempt by the SufyanI regime to curb private retaliation
and to assert its own monopoly of force by punishing offenders and
sometimes by paying the blood price itself. In these circumstances it
is not surprising to find governors such as Ziyad resorting to Sasanian
methods such as crucifixion,2Ol and in at least one instance his use of
a judgment seat bears a remarkable resemblance to Sasanian practice.
In 446 the Magian inquisitor, Tahm-Yazdagerd, who interrogated
apostates from Magianism to Christianity at Kirkuk, set up a judgment
seat (Syr. khOrsiya dh-denota) at a house of judgment (Syr. beth dina)
outside the city, to which he had the Christians brought.^202 The scene
of Ziyad's judgment at the gate of the masjid in Kufa appears to be
in this tradition. In 670, when a sedition occurred in the masjid at
Kufa, Ziyad had the gates closed against the people inside, set up a
judgment seat (Syr. kursi) at one of the gates, and had the people
brought out to him, four at a time, for judgment.^203 Ziyad is also
described judging disputes that were brought to him during his au-
dience at Basra with ShuraYQ, a qatji who had come from Kufa to199 Baladhuri, Ansiib, I, 503; Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, 'Iqd, IV, 83.
200 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 11, 74-75. In two tawqliit ascribed to Ziyad, just such sentences
are passed on a burglar and a grave robber (Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, 'Iqd, IV, 217).
201 In 615 Mihramgushnasp was crucified in the straw market in Veh-Ardashir for
apostasy from Magianism to Christianity (Chabot, "Chastete," p. 255). In 666 Ziyad·
crucified Sahm ibn Ghalib al-Hujaymi at his gate in Basra (Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 11, 83).
Such examples could be multiplied.
202 K. Brockelmann, Syrische Grammatik (Berlin, 1899), Chrestomathie, pp. 59,
61.
203 Tabari, Ta'nkh, 11, 88.