have a thousand bondservants who turned over their revenues to him, yet he never allowed any of that income to enter his own house.

The same report is transmitted by Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz with similar wording, adding: “Rather, he would give all of it away in charity.”

Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār relates: Abū Ghaziyyah Muḥammad ibn Mūsā narrated to me; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muṣʿab narrated to us, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from Fāṭimah bint al-Munḏir, from her grandmother Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr, who said:

Al-Zubayr passed by a circle of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while Ḥassān was reciting some of his poetry to them, yet they showed little enthusiasm for what they heard. Al-Zubayr sat down with them and said, “Why do I see you so reluctant to lend an ear to the poetry of Ibn al-Furayʿah? The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to have him recite before him, would listen attentively, reward him generously, and never turn away from him.”

Ḥassān then chanted in praise of al-Zubayr:

He kept to the Prophet’s covenant and guiding way,
His chosen disciple, where word and deed obey.
He clung to that path, that clear and straightened road,
Loyal to the friend of truth— and truth the juster code.
He is the famed horseman, the champion bold and bright,
Who surges forward when the battle-day is white.
When war bares its leg, he cleaves its midst in two
With a flashing white blade racing to death, swift and true. (1)
A man whose mother was Safiyyah— her line from Asad’s seed—
Is firmly rooted, noble in every deed. (2)
He holds a near kinship to the Messenger of Allah,
And from aiding Islam a glory that will endure.
How many a peril did al-Zubayr, by his sword, repel
From the Chosen Prophet— and Allah rewards full well.