—the slave—ripping him open.

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Salamah related, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Faḍl al-Hāshimī, from Sulaymān ibn Yasār, from Jaʿfar ibn ʿAmr ibn Umayyah al-Ḍamrī, who said:

I travelled with ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAdī ibn al-Khayyār to Syria. When we reached Ḥimṣ, ʿUbayd Allāh said to me, “Would you like to see Wahshī so that we can ask him about the killing of Ḥamzah?” I said, “Yes.”

Wahshī was living in Ḥimṣ, so we enquired about him and were told, “He is over there, sitting in the shade of his house, looking as though he had been scorched by the sun.” We went to him and paused a short while, greeted him with salām, and he returned the greeting. ʿUbayd Allāh had wound his turban round his face, so Wahshī could see nothing of him but his eyes and his legs.

ʿUbayd Allāh asked, “Wahshī, do you recognise me?” He looked at him and replied, “No, by Allah—except that I know ʿAdī ibn al-Khayyār married a woman called Umm Fithāl bint Abī al-ʿĪṣ. She bore a boy in Mecca, and they sought a wet-nurse for him. I carried that boy along with his mother and handed him to her; it is as though I can still see your feet.”

ʿUbayd Allāh then uncovered his face and said, “Will you not tell us how you killed Ḥamzah?” He answered, “Certainly. Ḥamzah had killed Tuʿaymah ibn ʿAdī ibn al-Khayyār at Badr, so my master Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim said to me, ‘If you kill Ḥamzah in retaliation for my uncle, you are free.’

“When the people moved away from ʿAynayn—ʿAynayn is a hill below Mount Uḥud, with a valley between it and Uḥud—I went out with them to fight. As the ranks formed, Sibāʿ stepped forward and called out, ‘Who will duel me?’ Ḥamzah came out to meet him and said, ‘O Sibāʿ, son of the clitoris-cutter! Do you challenge Allah and His Messenger?’ He then charged him and finished him off in an instant.

“I had stationed myself for Ḥamzah behind a rock. When he passed by, I threw my spear at him, driving it into his lower abdomen until it exited through his thigh—and that was the last I saw of him.”