83 – al-Ḥusayn narrated to us; he said: ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; he said: al-Ḥakam ibn Mūsā narrated to me; he said: Sabrah ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Sabrah narrated to us; he said: my father narrated from his father, who said:

When ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Sahl ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and Muzāḥim—the freedman of ʿUmar—died on successive days, al-Rabīʿ ibn Sabrah came in to console him and said, “May Allah magnify your reward, O Commander of the Believers. Never have I seen anyone struck by a calamity greater than yours in so short a span. By Allah, I have never seen the like of your son as a son, nor the like of your brother as a brother, nor the like of your freedman as a freedman, ever.”

ʿUmar lowered his head. A man sitting beside him on the cushion whispered to me, “You have stirred up his grief.” Then ʿUmar raised his head and said, “What was it you said to me, Rabīʿ?” I repeated the words I had spoken at first. He replied, “No—by the One who decreed death for him (or: for them)—I would not wish that anything of what has happened had not happened.”