life is better for me, and cause me to die when You know that death is better for me.” (1)
Al-Madāʾinī, al-Haytham, Shabāb, and a number of others said: al-Qāsim ibn Mukhaymirah died in Damascus during the caliphate of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.
Al-Fallās and al-Mufaḍḍal al-Ghallābī stated that he died in the year 100 AH.
Ibn Maʿīn said: in the year 100, or 101 AH.
Abū Mushir related: Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrated to us that al-Qāsim ibn Mukhaymirah said, “Two different dishes have never been placed together on my table.”
Ibn Jābir said: I saw al-Qāsim ibn Mukhaymirah respond whenever he was invited, yet he would eat only one kind of food.
Al-Awzāʿī said: al-Qāsim used to come to us as a volunteer stationed on the frontier. I heard him say, “For me to tread on a heated spearhead that pierces my foot is dearer to me than to step deliberately on the grave of a believer.” (2)
78 – Thumāmah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Anas ibn Mālik al-Anṣārī * (ʿ)
(1) Al-Bukhari, 10/107–108, Book of Illnesses, “The Sick Person’s Wish for Death,” and Muslim, no. 2680, Book of Remembrance and Supplication, “The Dislike of Wishing for Death because of Hardship,” both report—on the authority of Anas ibn Malik—that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “None of you should wish for death because of an affliction that has struck him; if he must do so, let him say: O Allah, keep me alive as long as life is better for me, and cause me to die when death is better for me.”
Al-Bukhari, 10/109–110, also transmits it from Abu Hurayra with the wording: “None of you should wish for death; if he is righteous, it may allow him to increase in good, and if he is sinful, it may give him the chance to repent.” Muslim, no. 2682, has: “None of you should wish for death or pray for it before it comes, for when one of you dies his deeds cease, and a believer’s lifespan only increases him in goodness.”
(2) The Prophet, peace be upon him, forbade sitting on graves. Muslim, Sahih, no. 971; Abu Dawud, no. 3228; al-Nasa’i, 4/95; and Ibn Majah, no. 1566, all transmit from Abu Hurayra: “For one of you to sit on a glowing ember that burns his clothes until it reaches his skin is better for him than to sit on a grave.”
(*) Ibn Saʿd, Tabaqat, 7/239; al-Bukhari, Tarikh al-Kabir, 2/177; al-Fasawi, Tarikh, 2/244, 248; Ibn Abi Hatim, Jarh wa-Taʿdil, 2/466; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal, p. 178; Ibn Hajar, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, 1/98/2; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, 4/237; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 2/28; Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 58.