some sources. Beyond these two singers, relatively little is known of the mukhannathun of Mecca, compared to the more well-known group in Medina. The most severe instance of persecution is typically dated to the time of al-Walīd I's brother and successor Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, seventh caliph of the Umayyad caliphate. According to several variants of this story, the caliph ordered the full castration of the mukhannathun of Medina. Some versions of the tale say that all of them were forced to undergo the procedure, while others state that only a few of them were; in the latter case, al-Dalāl is almost always included as one of the castrated mukhannathun. Some variants of the story add a series of witticisms supposedly uttered by the mukhannathun prior to their castration: Tuways: “This is simply a circumcision which we must undergo again.” al-Dalal: “Or rather the Greater Circumcision!” Nasim al-Sahar (“Breeze of the Dawn”): “With castration I have become a mukhannath in truth!” Nawmat al-Duha: “Or rather we have become women in truth!” Bard al-Fu'ad: “We have been spared the trouble of carrying around a spout for urine.” Zillal-Shajar (“Shade Under the Trees”): “What would we do with an unused weapon, anyway?” After this event, the mukhannathun of Medina begin to fade from historical sources, and the next generation of singers and musicians had few mukhannathun in their ranks. Rowson states that though many details of the stories of their castration were undoubtedly invented, “this silence supports the assumption that they did suffer a major blow sometime around the caliphate of Sulayman.” By the days of the Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn, the mukhannathun working as entertainment were now more associated with court jesters than famed musicians, and the term itself seems to have become synonymous with an individual employed as a comedian or pantomime. The Abbasid caliphs al-Maʾmūn and al-Mutawakkil employed a famed mukhannath named Abbada as an actor in comedic plays. He served as a buffoon whose act depended upon mockery and "low sexual humor", the latter of which involved the flaunting of his "passive homosexuality". These characteristics would define mukhannathun in later eras, and they never regained the relatively esteemed status they held in the early days in Medina. Religious opinions The 8th-century Muslim scholar Ibn S̲h̲ihāb al-Zuhrī stated that one should pray behind mukhannathun only in cases of necessity. Some 13th and 14th-century scholars like al-Nawawī and al-Kirmanī classified mukhannathun