He had been in charge of the rifādah (1) and owned Dār al-Nadwah when he embraced Islam. Later he sold the house to Muʿāwiyah for one hundred thousand—another report says for forty thousand dinars. Ibn al-Zubayr exclaimed, “You have sold the pride of Quraysh?!” Ḥakīm answered, “My nephew, the days of worldly distinction are gone; no true honor remains except through God-fearingness. Nephew, I bought it in the Time of Ignorance for a wineskin of wine, and now I intend to buy with its price a house in Paradise. I call you to witness that I have devoted the whole amount in the path of Allah.”
That building had been for Quraysh like a hall of justice: no one was allowed to enter it unless he was over forty years of age—except Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām, who was admitted when he was only fifteen. This was related by al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār (2).
Al-Zubayr also reports that during one of his pilgrimages Ḥakīm presented one hundred caparisoned sacrificial camels and one thousand sheep. On ʿArafāt he stood with one hundred attendants (3), silver collars around their necks engraved with the words, “These are Allah’s freedmen on behalf of Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām.” He then manumitted them and offered all those animals as sacrificial gifts (4). May Allah be pleased with him.
Ḥakīm died in this very year according to the soundest opinion—though some say in the year 50, and others in 60 (5)—and further dates are also mentioned. He was one hundred and twenty years old.
Ḥuwayṭib ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā al-ʿĀmirī (6) was a distinguished Companion. He accepted Islam in the year of the Conquest and lived to an advanced age; for that reason ʿUmar appointed him among the group charged with renewing the boundary stones of the Sacred Precinct (7).
(1) Al-rifāda (collective provisioning) was a practice by which Quraysh cooperated in the pre-Islamic period. Each person contributed wealth according to his capacity; they pooled a considerable fund during the pilgrimage season to purchase for the pilgrim the al-jazar, food, and raisins for wine, and continued feeding people until the season ended. Responsibility for rifāda and the provision of water (saqāya) belonged to Banu Hashim. The first to undertake rifāda was Hashim ibn Abd Manaf, so called because he “broke” (hashama) the thareed (porridge).
(2) Jumharat Ansāb al-Quraysh, p. 354.
(3) al-Wasīf (“the attendant”): a slave or servant.
(4) Jumharat Ansāb al-Quraysh, p. 356.
(5) The words enclosed between the two markers are not found in the printed edition.
(6) References: Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, 5: 454; Ibn Maʿīn, Tārīkh, 2: 140; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Ṭabaqāt Khalīfa, 27: 223; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh al-Khalīfa al-Kabīr, 3: 127; al-Maʿārif, 311; al-Jarḥ wa-al-Taʿdīl, 3: 314; al-ʿAqd al-Farīd, 4: 33, 158; Ibn Ḥibbān, Thiqāt, 3: 96; al-Shāmī, Mashāhīr ʿUlamāʾ al-Amṣār, p. 177; al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, 3: 243; al-Hākim, al-Mustadrak, 3: 492; al-Dānī, Jumharat Ansāb al-ʿArab, 167; al-Dhahabī, al-Istīʿāb, 1: 399; Ibn al-Qaysarānī, al-Jamʿ, 1: 114; Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Madīnat Dimashq, 5: 19; Ibn Ḥajar al-Asqalānī, Asad al-Gābah, 2: 75; Ibn ʿAsākir, Mukhtaṣar Tārīkh Dimashq, 7: 287; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, 7: 465; al-Suyūṭī, Tadhhīb al-Tahdhīb, 1: 183; Ibn Kathīr, Tārīkh al-Islām, 2: 278; al-Dhahabī, Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 2: 540; al-Kāshif, 1: 197; al-Kutubī, Tajrīd Asmāʾ al-Ṣaḥāba, 1: 144; al-Maghlatāʾī, Ikmāl, p.w. 305; al-ʿUqūd al-Thamīn, 4: 251; Nihāyat al-Sūl, w. 80; Ibn Ḥajar, al-Iṣābah, 2: 304; al-Suyūṭī, Tadhhīb al-Tahdhīb, 3: 66; al-Khazrajī, Khulāṣat al-Khazrajī, 99; Ibn ʿAsākir, Tahdhīb Tahdhīb, 5: 18.
(7) Anṣāb al-Ḥaram (“the sanctuary’s boundaries”): three miles on the road to al-Tanʿīm (west), nine miles on the road to Iraq, seven miles on the road to Yemen, and twenty miles on the road to Ṭā’if.