the women of the household of Abu Sufyan; they held mourning ceremonies for Husayn for three days… until he said:

Umm Kulthum bint ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmir wept, and Yazid—who was her husband—remarked, “It is only right that she should lament for the elder and chief of Quraysh.”

Jarir ibn Hazim narrated from al-Zubayr ibn al-Kharrit, who heard al-Farazdaq say:
“I met Husayn at Dhat ʿIrq. He asked me, ‘What do you think the people of Kufah will do with me? I am carrying a whole bundle of their letters.’ I replied, ‘They will abandon you; do not go.’ ”

Yazid then wrote to Ibn ʿAbbas about Husayn’s departure, saying, “We suspect that some men from the East have come to him and promised him the caliphate. You know better than anyone what news there is about them. If he has acted on this, he has severed the bonds of kinship. You are the elder of your household and the one to whom people look; therefore restrain him from pursuing division.”

Ibn ʿAbbas replied, “I hope that his setting out is not for something you would disapprove of, and I shall not cease to advise him.”

Husayn sent word to Medina, and those of Banu ʿAbd al-Muttalib who could travel quickly joined him—nineteen men, along with women and children. His brother Muhammad followed them and caught up with him in Mecca, telling him that leaving that very day was unwise, but Husayn refused. Muhammad therefore kept his own son back, which displeased Husayn, who said, “Are you holding your son back from a place where I shall be struck down?”

The people of Iraq dispatched messengers and letters to him, so he set out with his family and with sixty elders from Kufah on the tenth of Dhu al-Hijjah.

Marwan wrote to ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyad ibn Abih: “To proceed: Husayn is on his way to you, and by Allah, there is no one whose safety from Allah we desire more than Husayn’s. Beware, then, of bringing upon yourself a situation that nothing will be able to mend.”