“On the contrary, it will be your son who kills him, if Allah so wills.”

The two men met, and al-Zubayr slew him.

[The narrator] said: Al-Zubayr—whenever someone remarked to him, “By Allah, your sword was razor-sharp that day!”—would reply, “By Allah, it was not sharp at all; I simply forced it to do the job.”

Yūnus transmitted from Ibn Isḥāq, from certain members of his family, from Abū Rāfiʿ, the freedman of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who said:
“We set out with ʿAlī when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ dispatched him with his banner. When he drew near the stronghold, its defenders sallied forth and fought him. A man from the Jews struck ʿAlī and knocked the shield from his hand. ʿAlī seized the fortress gate, held it before himself as a shield, and continued to fight with it until Allah granted conquest. He then cast it aside. I found myself with seven others—making eight in all—straining to overturn that gate, yet we could not manage it. This report, however, contains an obvious anonymity and break in the chain.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī (1) and al-Ḥākim likewise narrated—through Muṭṭalib ibn Ziyād, from Layth ibn Abī Sulaym, from Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir, from Jābir—that ʿAlī lifted the gate of Khaybar so that the Muslims could climb over it and capture the fort, and that, when tested later, forty men could not lift it. This chain is also weak. In another feeble report from Jābir it is said that seventy men gathered around it and their utmost effort was merely to set the gate back in place.

Al-Bukhārī (2) recorded: Makkī ibn Ibrāhīm related to us; Yazīd ibn Abī ʿUbayd said, “I saw the mark of a wound on Salama’s leg. I asked, ‘Abū Muslim, what is this strike?’ He answered, ‘It is a wound I received on the day of Khaybar. The people said, “Salama has been hit.” I went to the Prophet ﷺ and he blew on it three times, and I have not suffered from it to this very hour.’”

Al-Bukhārī further said (3): ʿAbdullāh ibn Maslama related to us; Ibn Abī Ḥāzim from his father, from Sahl, who said:
“The Prophet ﷺ encountered the idolaters in one of his expeditions, and battle was joined. Each side then withdrew to its own encampment. Among the Muslims was a man who left none of the enemy, great or small, without pursuing and striking him with his sword. The people said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, no one has fought as effectively as so-and-so.’ He replied, ‘He is among the people of the Fire.’ They said, ‘Who among us, then, is destined for Paradise if this man is of the Fire?’ One of the men said, ‘I will follow him; whether he hastens forward or lags behind, I shall stay with him.’ The fighter was wounded, and, eager for death, placed the hilt of his sword on the ground with its point between his breastbones, then leaned upon it and killed himself. The observer came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, ‘I testify that you are the Messenger of Allah.’ He asked, ‘And what is the matter?’ The man told him what had happened, whereupon the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘A person may appear to people to perform the deeds of the people of Paradise while he is, in reality, one of the people of the Fire; and a person may appear to people to perform the deeds of the people of the Fire while he is, in reality, one of the people of Paradise.’”

Al-Bukhārī also transmitted it (4) through Qutaybah, from Yaʿqūb, from Abū Ḥāzim, from Sahl, with similar wording.