said to al-Zubayr, “Will you not charge so we can charge with you?”

He replied, “If I charge, you will leave me to fight alone.”

They answered, “We will not.” Thereupon he launched his attack, split their ranks, passed clear through them with no one at his side, then wheeled around to face them again. They seized his bridle and struck him twice—one blow on his shoulder, and between the two was an old wound he had received on the Day of Badr.

ʿUrwah said, “When I was a child I would put my fingers into those gashes and play with them.”

He added, “ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr was with him, a boy of ten. He seated him on a horse and appointed a man to look after him (1).”

I (the author) say: This encounter was, God willing, the Day of al-Yamāmah, for at that time ʿAbd Allah was ten years old.

Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh related: Sulaymān told us, on the authority of al-Ḥasan, who said:

“When ʿAlī gained the upper hand at the Battle of the Camel, he entered the house with the people around him and declared, ‘I know a leader of sedition who has entered Paradise, while his followers are heading for the Fire.’

Al-Aḥnaf asked, ‘Who is he?’

He replied, ‘al-Zubayr.’”

Its chain is interrupted, and its wording is objectionable. God forbid that we should bear witness that the followers of al-Zubayr, or the armies of Muʿāwiyah, or of ʿAlī are destined for the Fire. Rather, we consign their affair to Allah and seek forgiveness for them. Yes, the Khārijites are the dogs of Hell and the worst of those slain beneath the sky, because they defected from Islam, yet even concerning them we do not know their ultimate fate, nor do we rule that they will dwell in the Fire forever; we withhold judgment.

One poet said:

The true calamity is he whose grave the Valley of the Beasts enfolds—
for on every side of that valley lies the place where he fell.