Ibn Jarir (1) also related that, in this same year, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb sent a letter reproaching Khālid ibn al-Walīd for entering a ḥammām (public bathhouse) and, after depilating himself with nūra (a depilatory paste), rubbing his body with ʿuṣfur (safflower) mixed with wine.

In his letter he wrote:
“Allah has forbidden the outward and inward aspects of wine just as He has forbidden the outward and inward aspects of sin. He has also forbidden touching wine, so do not let it come into contact with your bodies, for it is impure. If you have done so, then do not repeat it.”

Khālid replied:
“We have ‘killed’ it so that what remains is only a wash—no longer wine.”

ʿUmar wrote back:
“I think the clan of al-Mughīrah has been afflicted with roughness; may Allah not let you die persisting in it.” (2)
So Khālid desisted.

Sīf said: That same year a plague also struck the people of Basra, and a vast multitude perished—raḍiya Allahu ʿanhum (may Allah be pleased with them), and may He be pleased with them all.

They further said: al-Ḥārith ibn Hishām set out with seventy members of his household for Syria, and only four returned. Concerning this al-Muhājir ibn Khālid (3) composed the following verses (metre: sarīʿ):

Whoever settles in Syria will lodge there,
and Syria—should it not destroy us—is still oppressive.

It wiped out the horsemen of Banū Rayṭah:
twenty warriors whose moustaches had never been trimmed.

And from their cousins, the same number again;
at such a thing even the astonished are astonished.(4)

By spear-thrust and by plague their terms were sealed—
such was the decree the Writer inscribed for us.

A strange event: Khālid was also dismissed from his command over Qinnasrīn.

Ibn Jarir (5) said: In that year Khālid ibn al-Walīd and ʿIyāḍ ibn Ghanm launched an adrāb—i.e., they took the Roman road and raided it—seizing immense wealth and many captives.

He then narrated, through Sīf, from Abū ʿUthmān, Abū Ḥāritha, al-Rabīʿ, and Abū al-Majālid:
When Khālid returned from the summer campaign with abundant riches, people flocked to him seeking his generosity. Among those who visited him was al-Ashʿath ibn Qays, and Khālid granted him ten thousand. When this reached ʿUmar (6) he wrote to Abū ʿUbaydah, ordering him to bring Khālid forward, remove his turban and skull-cap, bind him with his own turban, and question him about that ten thousand: if Khālid had given it from his own wealth, it was extravagance; if from the spoils of the summer campaign, it was betrayal (7). He was then to dismiss him from his post.

Accordingly, Abū ʿUbaydah summoned Khālid. Abū ʿUbaydah mounted the pulpit, Khālid was made to stand before it, and Bilāl rose and did—