by Hujayr b. Abī Ihāb for ʿUqbah b. al-Ḥārith b. ʿĀmir—his maternal half-brother—so that ʿUqbah could kill him in retaliation for his father.

When they led Hubayb out to execute him and had already erected a stake on which to crucify him, they reached al-Tanʿīm. There he said, “If you would permit me, allow me to pray two units of prayer.”

They replied, “Go ahead.”

He prayed, then declared, “By Allah, were it not that you would think I prolonged it out of fear of death, I would have lengthened my prayer.”

He was thus the first to establish the practice of praying before execution.

They then hoisted him upon his stake, and he supplicated: “O Allah, count them one by one, wipe them out completely, leave not a single one of them alive. O Allah, we have conveyed the message of Your Messenger, so convey to him this morning what has befallen us.”

Muʿāwiyah said: “I was among those present, and I saw Abū Sufyān throw himself to the ground in terror at Hubayb’s supplication.”

They used to say (1): “When a man is cursed and he lies flat on the ground, the curse slips past him.”

Ibn Isḥāq relates: Yahayā b. ʿAbbād told me, from his father, from ʿUqbah b. al-Ḥārith, who said: “By Allah, I did not kill him; I was too young for that. Rather, Abū Maysarah al-ʿAbdarī took my hand, set the spear in it, placed his own hand over mine, guided it, and with it killed him (2).”

ʿAbd Allah b. Idrīs reported to us: ʿAmr b. ʿUthmān b. Mawhab, the client of al-Ḥārith b. ʿĀmir, said: “Mawhab related: Hubayb—whom they had placed in my custody—said to me, ‘I ask of you…’”