1437 — Abū Bakr Abd Allāh ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Hamīd al-Wāsitī narrated to us. He said: Ismāīl ibn Abī al-Hārith narrated to us. He said: Dāwūd ibn al-Muhabbir narrated to us. He said: My father, Muhabbir ibn Qahdham, narrated to me, from Mujālid ibn Saīd, from al-Shabī, who said: When Uthmān ibn Affān (may Allah be pleased with him) was killed, Kab ibn Mālik al-Ansārī (may Allah have mercy on him) composed an elegy for him, saying:

[Long meter]

I marvel at a people who, after their former glory, surrendered
Their imam to wicked deeds and treachery.

Had they been subjected to any course of oppression,
Uthmān would have freely granted them strength and aid.

He was no traitor to the religion of God,
Nor was he grudging when apportioning shares.

Nor did he ever break Muhammad’s covenant,
Nor abandon the truth when forbidding or commanding.

If I weep for him, I am excused, for I have lost his justice;
I can find neither solace nor patience in his loss.

Could anyone who weeps over some grievous calamity
That befalls him after Ibn Affān have any excuse?

I have never seen a day of greater tribulation than that day,
Nor one on which sacred bounds and veils were more outrageously torn away.

⦗1963⦘

On the morning the Muslims were bereft of their finest man—
Their patron in devotion to the God of hardship and ease.