he implored him and said, “The people of Iraq are an unruly lot: they killed your father, struck your brother, and committed all manner of wrongs.”

Ibn al-Mubārak narrated—through Bishr ibn Ghālib—that al-Zubayr said to al-Ḥusayn, “Where are you heading? To a people who killed your father and speared your brother!”

Al-Ḥusayn replied, “For me to be killed is dearer than that its sanctity be violated—meaning Mecca. (1)

Abū Salamah al-Minqarī reported: Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm related to us, from Marwān al-Aṣfar; al-Farazdaq told me:

“When al-Ḥusayn set out, I met ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr and said, ‘He has departed; what do you advise?’ He said, ‘I think you should go out with him; if you desire this world you will attain it, and if you desire the Hereafter you will attain it.’ So I rode after him, but when I was some distance along the road, news of his killing reached me (2). I returned to ʿAbd Allāh and said, ‘What of the counsel you gave?’ He replied, ‘It was a view I had formed.’”

I say: This shows that ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr judged al-Ḥusayn’s march to be sound, and it was likewise the opinion of Ibn al-Zubayr and a number of Companions who witnessed the incident of al-Ḥarrah.

Ibn Saʿd said: al-Wāqidī informed us; Ibn Abī Dhiʾb narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmayr narrated to me (ḥ).

He also said: Ibn Abī al-Zinād informed us, from Abū Wajzah (ḥ); and Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq, from his father—he named a group besides them—then he said, “So I wrote down the gist of their reports on the killing of al-Ḥusayn.

“He said: The people of Kūfah used to write to al-Ḥusayn during Muʿāwiyah’s lifetime, inviting him to come out to them, and he continually refused. A party of them then came to Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah and asked him to travel with them, but he refused. He then went to al-Ḥusayn and informed him…”