O Jaʿdah, weep for him and do not grow weary—
with a grief that is genuine, not false.
You will never again draw the house-curtain for one like him
among mankind, whether they walk barefoot or shod.
I mean the man whom his own people surrendered
to the ruthless, scheming passage of time.
Whenever his hearth was lit,
he raised its flames high in keeping with his noble lineage,
so that a destitute pauper might sight it,
or a solitary traveller with no clan of his own.
He would set raw meat to boil; and once it was tender,
he never withheld it from anyone who wished to eat.

Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah said, reporting from Raqabah ibn Maṣqalah: When al-Ḥasan felt death approach he said, “Carry me out to the courtyard so that I may look upon the dominion of the heavens.” They carried his bed out; he lifted his head, looked, and said, “O Allah, I count my soul in Your care, for it is the dearest soul to me.” It was among the favors Allah granted him that he thus entrusted his soul to Him.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī said: When illness bore hard upon Sufyān al-Thawrī he was seized by great anxiety. Marḥūm ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz entered and said, “What is this agitation, O Abū ʿAbd Allāh? You are advancing toward a Lord you have worshipped for sixty years—you fasted for Him, prayed for Him, performed ḥajj for Him.” At that, al-Thawrī was calmed.

Abū Nuʿaym said: When the pain intensified for al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī he grew anxious. A man entered and said, “O Abū Muḥammad, what is this anxiety? It is only that your soul will leave your body and you will go on to meet your parents: ʿAlī and Fāṭimah; your two grandparents: the Prophet ﷺ and Khadījah; your uncles: Ḥamzah and Jaʿfar; your maternal uncles: al-Qāsim, al-Ṭayyib, al-Muṭahhar, and Ibrāhīm; and your maternal aunts: Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthūm, and Zaynab.” Thereupon he was comforted.

In another version the speaker was his brother Ḥusayn, and al-Ḥasan said, “My brother, I am entering into a matter decreed by Allah the like of which I have never experienced, and I am beholding creatures of Allah the like of whom I have never seen.” Ḥusayn then wept—may Allah be pleased with him. This was narrated by ʿAbbās al-Dūrī from Ibn Maʿīn, and others reported something similar from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad on the authority of his father.

Al-Wāqidī (1) said: Ibrāhīm ibn al-Faḍl related to us, from Abū ʿAtīq, who said: I heard Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh say, “We were present on the day al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī died, and civil strife nearly erupted between Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī and Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam; for al-Ḥasan had instructed his brother that he be buried beside the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Yet if he feared that fighting or turmoil might arise, then he was to bury him in al-Baqīʿ.”