“A prophet from us and a prophet from you.”

With that, Khalid put them to the sword—the twenty men who had been with Mujāʿah ibn Murārah—and he fastened Mujāʿah himself in iron shackles.

When the two armies met, Zayd ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, seeing the Muslims fall back, cried, “I will not survive after they retreat!” He then fought on until he was slain.

Ibn Sīrīn said: People held that Abū Maryam al-Ḥanafī was the one who killed Zayd.

Ibn Isḥāq said: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr shot Muhakkam al-Yamāmah ibn Ṭufayl with an arrow and killed him.

I say: There is disagreement about the date of the Battle of Yamāmah. Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ and Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī placed it in the year 11 AH. ʿAbd al-Bāqī ibn Qāniʿ said it was at the end of 11 AH. Abū Maʿshar held that it occurred in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of 12 AH, and that the number of those killed that day reached 450. Al-Wāqidī dated it to 12 AH, as did Abū Nuʿaym, Maʿn ibn ʿĪsā, Muḥammad ibn Saʿd (al-Wāqidī’s scribe), and others.

I further say: Most probably the battle began at the close of 11 AH, as Ibn Qāniʿ suggested, and ended in the early part of 12 AH, for the siege lasted several days. I will return to the story of the battle and its martyrs at the opening of the events for 12 AH.