Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh said: Al-Ahnaf wrote to Ḥusayn, “So be patient; the promise of Allah is surely true, and let not those who lack certainty unsettle you” (Qur’an 30:60).

ʿAwāna ibn al-Ḥakam—through Labata ibn al-Farazdaq, from his father—reported: “I met Ḥusayn and said, ‘Our hearts are with you, but our swords are with the Umayyads.’ (1)

Ibn ʿUyayna likewise narrates from Labata, from his father: “Ḥusayn met me as he was leaving Mecca with a party of men clad in brocade cloaks. (2) He asked, ‘What news do you bring?’ My speech was thick, for I was suffering from an attack of barsām that had affected my tongue.”

It was also said that Ḥusayn and his company possessed thirty-two horses.

Ibn Saʿd records through his chains of transmission: “Ḥusayn took the road of al-ʿUdhayb (3) until he halted at the fortress of Abū Muqātil (4). There he nodded off briefly, then uttered the istirjāʿ—‘Indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we return’—and said, ‘I saw in a dream a horseman riding beside us, declaring, “The people are travelling while death speeds toward them.”’

“Later he encamped at Karbalāʾ. ʿUmar ibn Saʿd advanced against him, though reluctantly … until it was said: ‘Ḥusayn’s companions were slain around him—they were fifty in all—while twenty men from the opposing ranks defected to his side. For most of the day no one dared approach him. The infantry surrounded him, yet whenever he charged at them they scattered, unwilling to face him. Then Shimr shouted at them, ‘May your mothers be bereft of you! What are you waiting for?’”