Qatādah said: “Al-Ḥusayn was killed on Friday, the Day of ʿĀshūrāʾ, in the year 61 AH. He was fifty-four years, six months, and about half a month old. Al-Layth, Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, al-Wāqidī, Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ, Abū Maʿshar and many others stated likewise: that he was slain on the Day of ʿĀshūrāʾ in 61 AH. Some claimed he died on a Saturday, but the first view is the sounder.(1)
They have recounted many extraordinary events which, they say, occurred at his death: that the sun was eclipsed that day—this is weak; that the horizons of the sky changed colour; that no stone was overturned without blood being found beneath it—some restricted this to the stones of Jerusalem; that the dyestuff wars turned to ash; that meat became as bitter as colocynth and was aflame; and other such reports, some of which are plainly objectionable while others are merely possible. Allah knows best.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ—the leader of the children of Adam in this world and the next—died and none of these things occurred. The Truthful One (al-Ṣiddīq) after him died and nothing of this took place. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb was martyred while standing in the miḥrāb leading the dawn prayer; ʿUthmān was besieged in his home and later slain as a martyr; ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib was martyred after the dawn prayer—yet none of these phenomena were witnessed in their cases. Allah knows best.
Ḥammād ibn Salamah narrated—from ʿAmmār ibn Abī ʿAmmār—from Umm Salamah—that she heard the jinn wailing over al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī.(2) This report is sound.
Shahr ibn Ḥawshab said: “We were with Umm Salamah when the news of al-Ḥusayn’s killing reached her, and she collapsed unconscious.”(3)
The reason for al-Ḥusayn’s death was that the people of Iraq wrote to him, asking him to come to them so they could pledge allegiance to him as caliph. Letters poured in from the populace and from his cousin Muslim ibn ʿAqīl. When ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ziyād—Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah’s governor over Iraq—learned of this, he sent for Muslim ibn ʿAqīl, struck off his head, and threw him from the palace to the masses; their assembly scattered and their unity dissolved. Meanwhile al-Ḥusayn had already set out from the Ḥijāz toward Iraq, unaware of what had happened. He departed with his family and those who obeyed him—about three hundred people. A number of Companions counselled him against this, among them Abū Saʿīd, Jābir, Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn ʿUmar, but he would not heed them. How excellent was Ibn ʿUmar’s advice, and the proofs he advanced to show that al-Ḥusayn’s aim would not be realised, yet he did not accept.
Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī narrated—from Yaḥyā ibn Sālim al-Asadī, and Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī likewise recorded it in his Musnad—who said: I heard al-Shaʿbī say: “Ibn ʿUmar came to Madinah and was informed that al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī had set out for Iraq, so he caught up with him two or three nights’ journey outside Madinah.
He said, ‘Where are you heading?’
Al-Ḥusayn replied, ‘To Iraq,’ and with him were bundles of letters and documents.
He said, ‘Do not go to them.’
Al-Ḥusayn said, ‘These are their letters and their pledges of allegiance.’
Ibn ʿUmar said, ‘Allah offered His Prophet ﷺ the choice between this world and the Hereafter, and he chose the Hereafter and had no desire for this world. You are a part of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and, by Allah, none of you will ever rule it…’”