“This is the work of Abū Barāʾ. If I die, my blood is on my uncle—let no one seek retaliation from him; but if I live, I shall decide what to do.”
Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah said: “Kaʿb ibn Zayd was discovered among the slain with a spark of life in him, and he was finally martyred on the Day of the Trench.”
Hammād ibn Salamah related: Thābit told us, on the authority of Anas, that some people came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, “Send with us men who will teach us the Quran and the Sunnah.” He therefore dispatched seventy men from the Anṣār who were known as “the Reciters.” Among them was my maternal uncle Ḥarām ibn Milḥān. By night they would recite and study the Quran; by day they would draw water and leave it in the mosque, gather firewood, sell it, and with the proceeds buy food for the People of the Veranda. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent them off, but their enemies lay in wait and killed them before they reached their destination. As they were being slain they cried out, “O Allah, convey to our Prophet that we have met You and You are pleased with us and we are pleased with You.” Then a man came up behind my uncle and thrust his spear clear through him, whereupon Ḥarām exclaimed, “By the Lord of the Kaʿbah, I have triumphed!” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ later told his Companions, “Your brothers have been killed, and they said, ‘O Allah, convey to our Prophet that we have met You and You are pleased with us and we are pleased with You.’” Reported by Muslim.
Hammām and others transmitted from Isḥāq ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Ṭalḥah that Anas said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent his uncle Ḥarām at the head of seventy men, and they were killed on the day of Biʾr Maʿūnah. The leader of the idolaters was ʿĀmir ibn al-Ṭufayl, who had once come to the Prophet ﷺ and said, ‘I offer you three choices: that the people of the lowlands be under your authority while the people of the highlands are under mine; or that I be your successor after you; or I will attack you with Ghatafān, bringing a thousand chestnut stallions and a thousand chestnut mares.’ Later he was struck down in the house of a woman from such-and-such a clan, saying, ‘A swelling like the swelling…’