when one of them had climbed up a wooden board to force his way in to ʿUthmān. My brother ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr confronted him there, struck him a single blow, and the man dropped to the paving stones, dead.

I turned to the boys who were with me and said, “My brother has killed him.”

The men besieging ʿUthmān pounced on me, stripped me, and when they saw that I had not yet grown any hair, they let me go (1).

This is a report with a broken chain.

Abū Usāmah narrated—from Hishām, from his father—who said:

“I and Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān were turned back on the Day of the Camel; we were considered too young (2).”

Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn said, “He was thirteen years old on that day, and all of this is consistent, for he was born in 23 AH.”

Al-Zubayr related: ʿAlī ibn Ṣāliḥ told me; ʿĀmir ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr told me, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father:

“He came to Basra to visit Ibn ʿAbbās while the latter was its governor, and it is said that he recited to him:

I claim a bond of kinship with you that is near,
Yet kinship grants no nearness unless you grant it.

Ibn ʿAbbās asked ʿUrwah, ‘Who composed these lines?’

He replied, ‘Abū Aḥmad ibn Jahsh.’

Ibn ʿAbbās said, ‘Do you know what the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said to him?’

He answered, ‘No.’

He said, ‘He told him, “You have spoken the truth.”’

Then he said to me, ‘What has brought you to Basra?’

I replied, ‘Circumstances have become difficult, and ʿAbd Allāh refuses to distribute the estate for seven years; he has sworn an oath not to do so until he has settled al-Zubayr’s debt.’

So he granted me a stipend and gave me provisions. ʿUrwah then went on to Egypt and remained there for some time (3).