45 – Al-Ḥusayn narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn al-Jaʿd narrated to us; Abū ⦗51⦘ Yūsuf the judge narrated to us, from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAlī, from his father and his grandfather, that he wrote the following testament:

“This is what ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib has ordained and ruled concerning his estate. He has dedicated it as charity, seeking Allah’s pleasure and His countenance. It is to be spent on every expenditure in the path of Allah—whether in war or peace—upon the troops, the womb-relatives, both near and distant.

None of the property at Yanbuʿ is to be sold or inherited, except that Riyaḥ, Abū Nīzar and Jubayr—should anything befall me—are not to be harmed. They are freedmen who shall manage the estate for five harvest seasons, and from it shall come their maintenance and that of their families. Such is my ruling regarding what I possess at Yanbuʿ: a binding endowment whether I live or die.

Together with it, whatever I own in Wādī al-Qurā shall likewise remain, alive or dead; the same applies to al-Udhaynaiba and its people, alive or dead; and likewise to Raʿa and its people. As for Rāzim, he is to receive the same provision that has been written for Abū Nīzar, Riyaḥ and Jubayr; he shall take charge of them and hold that as a pledge. I have settled this ⦗52⦘ between myself and Allah for tomorrow, the day I reached Maskan, whether in life or in death.

My property in Wādī al-Qurā, al-Udhaynaiba and Raʿa is devoted to seeking Allah’s Face and to His cause on the Day when faces will turn dark and faces will turn bright. They are not to be sold, gifted or inherited except to the rightful administrator. This is what ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib has decreed concerning his wealth—a final, binding judgment.

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī shall oversee it so long as he lives; if he dies, he is to hand it over to al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, who shall oversee it while he lives; if he dies, its supervision shall pass to the eldest, then the eldest, among those advanced in years and righteousness—whoever administers it with justice, feeds the people therein according to what is right, without wrongdoing and without extravagance, cultivating, planting and maintaining it as they would their own property.

No offshoot of the date-palms of these four villages, not a single trunk, is to be sold until their land is thick with saplings, for I have endowed it for the believers, the first of them and the last. Whoever is placed in charge of it, I remind him by Allah to remain steadfast, to act with sincerity, to preserve the trust and to broaden its benefit.

This is the document of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—may Allah have mercy on him—written in his own hand on the day he arrived at Maskan. You know that provision for the poor in the path of Allah is a binding obligation, and that the property of Muḥammad the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is to be spent on every expenditure in the path of Allah and in quest of His countenance, and upon the womb-relatives, the poor, the needy and the stranded traveller. The eldest of the sons of Fāṭimah shall administer that trust with integrity and reform, tending it as he tends his own property—cultivating, planting, advising and striving. ⦗53⦘

This is what ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may Allah be pleased with him, bequeathed concerning the properties recorded in this scroll. Allah is the One whose help is sought in every circumstance. It is not permissible for anyone who governs them or judges concerning them to act contrary to my directive.

Now then, my bondwomen whom I visit number nineteen: some are mothers of my children, together with their children; some are pregnant; and some have no child. I have ruled that, should death overtake me on this campaign, any of them who has neither child nor pregnancy is emancipated for the sake of Allah; no one shall have any authority over her. Any who is pregnant or has a child shall remain for the sake of her child, and she belongs to his share. If her child dies while she is still alive, no one is to have authority over her.

This is what he decreed concerning his nineteen bondwomen. It was witnessed by ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Abī Rāfiʿ and Hiyāj ibn Abī Hiyāj, and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib penned the principal document in his own hand on the tenth of Jumādā al-Ūlā in the year 39 AH. ʿUbayd Allāh said: there were four months and thirteen nights between the writing of this document and his death.