—fifty-eight years old; during her lifetime Ḥasan had died, and Ḥusayn had been slain. (1)
I say: His remark, “Ḥasan died in her lifetime,” is incorrect; rather, he lived for forty-seven years.
The scholars as a whole maintain that he was killed on the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ, in the year 61 AH.
Some added: it was on a Saturday; others said: on a Friday; and still others said: on a Monday.
He was born in Shaʿbān of the fourth year after the Hijrah.
ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Bahrām—and another trustworthy narrator—reported from Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, who said:
“I was with Umm Salamah, the Prophet’s wife ﷺ, when the news of Ḥusayn’s killing reached her. She exclaimed, ‘Have they really done it? May Allah fill their houses and their graves with fire!’ She then lost consciousness, and we stood by her.”
Az-Zubayr transmitted to Sulaymān ibn Qatta (2) this elegy for Ḥusayn:
Indeed, the martyr of al-Taff from the House of Hāshim
Has bowed the necks of Quraysh, and they were humbled.
If the Refugee of the Sacred House should pursue them,
They will awaken like ʿĀd, who spurned guidance and went astray.
I passed by the dwellings of Muḥammad’s family
And found them, once inhabited, now desolate. (3)
(1) Al-Tabarani, no. 2784.
(2) The name is vowelled with an open qaf and a doubled ta—Qattah—as recorded by Ibn Nasir al-Din in Tawdih al-Mushtabih, fol. 215; Ibn Hajar in Tabsir al-Muntabih, 3/1122; and Ibn al-Jazari in Tabaqat al-Qurra, 1/314. In Tajil al-Manfa‘a it is mistakenly written “Qinah.” The person concerned is Sulayman b. Qattah al-Taymi, a client from Basra. He narrated from Ibn Abbas, ‘Amr b. al-‘As and others, and was in turn narrated by Musa b. Abi ‘Aisha and others. A horseman and poet, he recited the Quran to Ibn Abbas three times, and ‘Asim al-Jahdari read to him (Ibn al-Jazari). He is listed in al-Bukhari, Tarikh, 4/32, and in Jarh wa-Ta‘dil, 4/136. The verses are attributed to him in al-Isti‘ab, 1/379; al-Bidaya, 8/211; and Ibn ‘Asakir’s Tahdhib, 4/345-346, while the first, third, fourth and fifth lines also appear in Abu Tammam’s Hamasa, 2/961-962 (Marzuqi’s commentary). Yaqut al-Hamawi ascribes them to Abu Dhuhbil, but this view has not been accepted.
(3) In the Hamasa the second hemistich reads: “so I never saw her, the like of her, on the day she alighted.” Al-Marzuqi comments that the calamity has left such visible traces of grief on her that she appears bewildered.