Ibn Jarīr relates in his History: “Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā informed us; Yazīd b. Zurayʿ narrated to us; from Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī, from Anas, that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, cauterised Asʿad b. Zurārah for a wound caused by a thorn.” All the transmitters in this chain are trustworthy.

Ibn Isḥāq states: ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Bakr b. Muḥammad b. ʿAmr b. Ḥazm related to me from Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Asʿad b. Zurārah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, declared, “What an evil death Abu Umāmah is for the Jews and the hypocrites among the Arabs! They will say, ‘Had he been a prophet, his companion would not have died.’ Yet I hold no power for myself or for my companion against what Allah decrees.”

This indicates that he was the first to die after the Prophet’s arrival. Abū al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Athīr, however, asserts in Usd al-Gābah that he died in Shawwāl, seven months after the Prophet’s arrival—and Allah knows best.

Muḥammad b. Isḥāq also recounts, on the authority of ʿĀṣim b. ʿUmar b. Qatādah, that the Banū al-Najjār asked the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, to appoint a naqīb for them after Abu Umāmah Asʿad b. Zurārah. He replied, “You are my maternal uncles; I belong among you, and I am your naqīb,” disliking to single out some of them over others. Thus the Banū al-Najjār prided themselves over their fellow clans in that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, was their naqīb.

Ibn al-Athīr remarks that this refutes the claim of Abū Nuʿaym and Ibn Mandah that Asʿad b. Zurārah was the naqīb of Banū Saʿīdah; rather, he was naqīb over Banū al-Najjār, and Ibn al-Athīr is correct in this.

Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Jarīr further states in his History: The first Muslim said to have died after the Prophet’s arrival in Madinah was the owner of the house in which he lodged, Kulthūm b. al-Hidm; he lived only a short while after the Prophet’s arrival before passing away. After him Asʿad b. Zurārah died in the same year, before the mosque was completed, succumbing to al-dhibḥah (quinsy) or al-shahqah (pleurisy).

I say: Kulthūm b. al-Hidm b. Imriʾ al-Qays b. al-Ḥārith b. Zayd b. ʿUbayd b. Zayd b. Mālik b. ʿAwf b. ʿAmr b. Mālik b. al-Aws was an Anṣārī of the Aws, from the clan of Banū ʿAmr b. ʿAwf. He was an elderly man who had embraced Islam before the arrival of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, in Madinah. When the Prophet reached Madinah and resided in Qubāʾ, he spent the night in Kulthūm’s house, and