and the killing of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. So he married her on those terms. After the marriage had been consummated she said to him, “Sir, you have fulfilled your desire; now fulfil mine.” He therefore went out armed, and she went out with him. She set up a tent for him in the mosque, and ʿAlī came out saying, “The prayer, the prayer!” ʿAbd al-Raḥmān followed him and struck him with the sword on the crown of his head. A poet—ibn Jarīr said he was Ibn Miyās al-Murādī (1)—recited, in the metre of al-ṭawīl:

I have never seen a dowry brought by a generous man
Like Qaṭām’s dowry, plainly set forth, unambiguous; (2)
Three thousand, a slave, a singing-girl,
And the slaying of ʿAlī with a well-tempered blade. (3)
No bride-price was ever dearer than ʿAlī, however dear,
Nor any act of violence to match the violence (4) of Ibn Muljam.

Ibn Jarīr attributed these verses to Ibn Miyās al-Murādī, and he also transmitted on his authority (5) the following lines about their killing of ʿAlī, likewise in al-ṭawīl:

We are the ones who struck (6) Mālik al-khayr Ḥaydar (7)
Abū al-Ḥasan upon the crown, (8) splitting him asunder;
We tore his sovereignty out of its order
With a single sword-stroke when he rose and waxed arrogant;
We are noble, valiant in the tumult (9) and mighty—
When death clothes itself in death and girds itself with it.

Some of the later Khārijites in the era of the Successors praised Ibn Muljam; among them was ʿImrān ibn Ḥiṭṭān, one of the devout worshippers who transmits (10) reports from ʿĀʾisha in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. (11) He said—commending Ibn Muljam for killing ʿAlī— (12) in the metre of al-basīṭ:

O noble stroke of a God-fearing man—he sought by it
Nothing but to win the pleasure of the Lord of the Throne!
Whenever I recall him on any day, I deem him
The one whose balance is weightiest with Allah among all mankind.