“O Allah, grant us a good outcome.” (1)

Those who narrated from him include Junādah ibn Abī Umayyah, Ayyūb ibn Maysarah, and Abū Rāshid al-Hubrānī.

Al-Wāqidī said, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed away when he was eight years old.”

Ibn Yūnus remarked, “He was a Companion; he witnessed the conquest of Egypt and owned a house and a bathhouse there. Muʿāwiyah appointed him over the Ḥijāz and Yemen, where he committed shameful acts, and in the closing years of his life he became afflicted with obsessive misgivings.”

I (the author) say: He was a brave horseman, a lethal fighter, one of the outstanding champions, yet there is hesitation regarding his companionship.

Aḥmad and Ibn Maʿīn said, “He did not hear anything directly from the Prophet ﷺ, and he took Muslim women captive in Yemen and put them up for sale.”

Ibn Isḥāq stated, “He killed Qutham and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the young sons of ʿUbayd Allah ibn al-ʿAbbās, in Yemen, and their mother was distraught with grief over them.”

It was also said that he killed a number of ʿAlī’s supporters and demolished their houses in Madinah.

On one occasion he ascended the pulpit and cried out, “O Dīnār! O Ruzayq! The gracious elder I saw here only yesterday—what has become of him?”—meaning ʿUthmān—“Had it not been for Muʿāwiyah’s covenant, I would not have left a single adult male here alive; I would have slain them all!”

Yet he did inflict heavy losses on the Byzantines: he went alone into one of their churches, killed a number of them, and sustained many wounds. When his troops arrived, they found him still defending himself with his sword; they finished off the remainder and carried him away.

In the end, a sword of— was placed for him in his scabbard.