He was present at the Battle of Uḥud and every engagement thereafter, and on the Day of Dhī Qarad he rendered a praiseworthy service, as we mentioned earlier. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said,
“Today the finest of our horsemen is Abū Qatādah, and the finest of our infantrymen is Salamah ibn al-Akwaʿ.” (1)

Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim alleged that he was also at Badr, but this is not reliably attested. Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī said, “One better than I—Abū Qatādah al-Anṣārī—informed me that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to ʿAmmār, ‘The rebellious faction will kill you.’” (2)

Al-Wāqidī and others reported that he died this very year—that is, in 54 AH—in Madinah at the age of seventy. Al-Haytham ibn ʿAdī and others claimed that he passed away in Kūfah in 38 AH and that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib led his funeral prayer; this report is singular.

Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām (3)—son of Khuwaylid ibn Asad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn Quṣayy ibn Kilāb, a Qurashi of the Banū Asad clan, kunya Abū Khālid of Makkah. His mother was Fākhtah bint Zuhayr ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Asad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, and his paternal aunt was Khadījah bint Khuwaylid, the wife of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and the mother of all his children except Ibrāhīm.

His mother gave birth to him inside the Kaʿbah thirteen years before the Year of the Elephant: she had entered the sanctuary to visit it, labour pains struck her while she was still inside, and she delivered him upon a leather mat. He harboured intense love for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and when Banū Hāshim and Banū al-Muṭṭalib were confined to the mountain pass and people would neither buy from them nor marry into them, Ḥakīm would come with caravans arriving from Syria, purchase the whole consignment (4), then take it away and drive