noble, and was killed, leaving an irreplaceable void (1) (2).

Al-Riyāshī recited on the authority of a man from Quraysh:

“O you who ask about the best of God’s servants,
You have come to one endowed with knowledge and experience.
All of God’s servants, the best are Quraysh,
And the best of Quraysh are those who made the Emigration.
The finest of the Emigrants were the earliest—
Eight men whom He singled out for help:
ʿAlī, ʿUthmān, then al-Zubayr,
Talḥah, and two men from the clan of Zuhrah;
And the two truly righteous who neighbored Aḥmad,
Whose graves now lie beside his own.
So if anyone after them would boast of honor,
Let him not voice his pride once they are named.”

Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn said: Hishām ibn Yūsuf narrated to us, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muṣʿab, who told me that Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah said: I heard ʿAlqamah ibn Waqqās al-Laythī say:

When Talḥah, al-Zubayr, and ʿĀʾishah set out to seek retaliation for ʿUthmān’s blood, they stopped on their way back at Dhāt ʿIrq. Finding ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr and Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān too young, they sent the two of them home.

He continued: I saw Talḥah—whose favorite gatherings were always those with the fewest people—sitting with his beard resting on his chest. I said:

“O Abū Muḥammad! I see that the gatherings you like most are the emptiest. If you dislike this business, then leave it.”

He replied, “O ʿAlqamah, do not blame me. Yesterday we were one hand against everyone else, but today we have become two mountains of iron, each advancing toward the other. Yet there was a wrong I committed concerning ʿUthmān for which I see no atonement except that my own blood be shed and that I pursue his blood (3).”