Once he had died, I came back and pulled out my spear, then withdrew to the camp; I had no concern that day for anything but him.
(Abū Bakr ibn Abī ʿĀṣim said: ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Najdah narrated to us—Baqiyyah, from Buḥayr, from Khālid ibn Maʿdān, from Abū Bilāl, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Sāʾib—that on the Day of the Ravine the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was the last of his Companions, and that no one stood between him and the enemy except Ḥamzah, who was fighting them. Wahshī lay in wait for him and killed him. Allah had enabled Ḥamzah to slay thirty-one of the unbelievers, and he was called “the Lion of Allah.”)(1)
Ibn Isḥāq (2) said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbbās ibn Rabīʿah ibn al-Ḥārith related to me, from Sulaymān ibn Yasār, from Jaʿfar ibn ʿAmr ibn Umayyah al-Ḍumrī, who said:
I went out together with ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAdī ibn al-Khayyār, of the Banū Nawfal ibn ʿAbd Manāf (3), during the time of Muʿāwiyah. We joined the march with the people (4), and when we passed through Ḥimṣ we found that Wahshī, the client of Jubayr, had taken up residence there.
When we arrived, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAdī said, “Would you like to go to Wahshī and ask him how he killed Ḥamzah?”
I replied, “If you wish.” So we went round Ḥimṣ making inquiries about him.
A man said to us while we were asking, “You will find him in the courtyard of his house. Wine has gained the upper hand over him. If you find him sober, you will see a proper Arab and be able to obtain from him some of what you want; he will give you whatever information you seek. But if you find him in his usual state, then leave him and go away.”
We walked on until we reached him. There he was in the courtyard of his house on a small rug, an exceedingly old man, as frail as the baghāth-bird, yet fully sober. When we came up to him we greeted him with salām.
He lifted his head toward ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAdī and asked, “Are you a son of ʿAdī ibn al-Khayyār?”
“Yes,” he replied.
He said, “By Allah, I have not seen you since your Saʿdī wet-nurse handed you over to me at Dhū Ṭuwā. She passed you down to me while she was on her camel; I took hold of your waist, and your feet flashed before me as I lifted you up to her. By Allah, the moment you stood before me I recognized them.”
We sat down with him and said, “We have come so that you may tell us about your killing of Ḥamzah—how did you kill him?”
He said, “I will recount it to you exactly as I told the Messenger of Allah ﷺ when he asked me about it. I was a slave of Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim, whose uncle Ṭuʿaymah ibn ʿAdiyy had been killed at Badr. When Quraysh marched to Uḥud, Jubayr said to me, ‘If you kill Ḥamzah, Muhammad’s uncle, in revenge for my uncle Ṭuʿaymah (5), you will be a free man.’
“So I went out with the people. I was an Abyssinian who could hurl a spear the way the Abyssinians do, scarcely ever missing my mark. When the two armies met, I began searching for Ḥamzah and scrutinising him until I saw him in the midst of the ranks, towering like a dapple-grey camel, cutting men down with his sword—nothing could stand before him. By Allah, I was getting myself ready for him, sheltering behind a tree or a rock so that he might come within range, when Sibaʿ ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā reached him before I did.”