When Ḥamzah caught sight of him he exclaimed, “Come here, you son of a clitoris-cutter!”
He (Sibāʿ) struck at him with a blow that seemed to miss his head.
I (Wahshī) then shook my spear, and when I was satisfied with my aim I thrust it at him. It entered his lower abdomen and came out between his legs. He tried to stagger toward me but collapsed. I left him with the spear in him until he died; then I went back, pulled out my weapon, and returned to the camp, where I sat down. I cared for nothing else that day—I had killed him only to win my freedom.
When I reached Mecca I was manumitted and remained there until the Messenger of Allah ﷺ conquered the city. I fled to al-Ṭāʾif and stayed there. When the delegation of al-Ṭāʾif set out to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to embrace Islam, every route seemed closed to me. I said, “I shall go to Syria, or to Yemen, or to some other land.” By Allah, I was in deep anxiety when a man said to me, “Woe to you! By Allah, he never kills anyone who enters his religion and bears witness to the truth.”
When he said that, I set off and reached the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in Madinah. Suddenly he saw me standing before him proclaiming the testimony of faith. When he looked at me he said (1), “Are you Wahshī?”
“Yes, O Messenger of Allah,” I replied.
He said, “Sit down and tell me how you killed Ḥamzah.”
I related the story exactly as I have just told the two of you. When I finished he said, “Woe to you! Keep out of my sight; let me never see you.”
After that I avoided the Messenger of Allah ﷺ wherever he was, so that he would not see me, until Allah took him to Himself.
When the Muslims set out against Musaylimah the Liar at al-Yamāmah, I went with them, carrying the very spear with which I had killed Ḥamzah. When the two sides met, I saw Musaylimah standing with a sword in his hand—I did not recognise him at first. I prepared to strike him, and from the other side an Anṣārī was likewise aiming for him; both of us wanted him. I shook my spear, and when I was satisfied with it I hurled it at him; it struck him, and the Anṣārī closed in on him with his sword. Your Lord knows which of us killed him. If it was I, then I have slain the best of people after the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and the worst of people.
I (the author) say: The Anṣārī was Abū Dujānah, Samāk ibn Kharashah, as will be mentioned in the account of those killed at al-Yamāmah with Musaylimah.
Al-Wāqidī, in al-Riddah, states that it was ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zayd ibn ʿĀṣim al-Māzinī.
Sayf ibn ʿUmar (2) maintains that it was ʿAdiyy ibn Sahl, and he is the one who said:
Have you not seen that I, together with their Wahshī,
slew Musaylimah, the deluded deceiver?
People ask me how he was killed;
I reply: “That was the sword-blow, and this the spear-thrust.”
The commonly accepted report is that Wahshī delivered the first strike and Abū Dujānah finished him off, for Ibn Isḥāq (3) has transmitted—through ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Faḍl, from Sulaymān ibn Yasār, from Ibn ʿUmar—who said: “I heard a herald on the day of al-Yamāmah proclaim, ‘The black slave has killed him.’”