he is dearer to me than my own father and my neighbor,
Dearer than the man of silver and gold.
I fear, should I betray him, the searing heat of the Fire.
The narrator said: Muʿawiyah laughed and ordered that the Bedouin be given ten thousand dirhams, a mount, and bedding; when her waiting-period was over, he married her to him and delivered her to him. We have omitted from this story many lengthy poems (1).
In this same year there were protracted encounters between ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyad and the Kharijites. He killed a great many of them, an immense number, imprisoned others, and, like his father, dealt with them in a resolute and daring manner.
[Those of note who died in this year]
Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs (2): the son of [Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs] (3) ibn Umayyah ibn ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manaf, of Quraysh, of the Umayyads. His father was slain at Badr as an unbeliever by ʿAli ibn Abi Talib. Saʿid was brought up in the care of ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan, and he was nine years old when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed away. He was counted among the Muslim nobility and the celebrated men of generosity. His grandfather Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs—whose kunya was Abu Uhayshah (4)—was a chief of Quraysh and was called Dhu al-Taj (“the Man of the Diadem”), for whenever he turbaned himself none would turban that day out of deference to him.
This Saʿid served under ʿUmar as governor over al-Sawad, and ʿUthman appointed him among those who wrote the codices of the Quran because of his eloquence. They said he was the person whose speech (5) most closely resembled that of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He was also one of the twelve men [who extracted
(1) Mukhtasar Tārīkh Dimashq (Abridged History of Damascus), vol. 29, pp. 250–253.
(2) Ṭabaqāt Ibn Saʿd, vol. 5: 30; Nasab Quraysh, p. 176; Tārīkh Khalīfah, pp. 163, 165, 166, 168, etc.; al-Muḥabbar, pp. 55, 150, 174; Tārīkh al-Bukhārī al-Kabīr, vol. 3: 502; al-Maʿārif, pp. 296, 614; al-Maʿrifah wa-al-Tārīkh, vol. 1: 292; Ansāb al-Ashrāf, vol. 4: 433; Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5: 293; al-Jarḥ wa-al-Taʿdīl, vol. 4: 48; Mashāhīr ʿUlamā’ al-Amṣār (d. 446); al-Aghānī, vol. 17: 224; Muʿjam al-Ṭabarānī al-Kabīr, vol. 6: 73; Jumharat Ansāb al-ʿArab, p. 80; al-Istīʿāb, vol. 2: 621; al-Jamʿ bayna Rijāl al-Ṣaḥīḥayn, p. 174; Tārīkh Ibn ʿAsākir, vol. 7: 127/A; Asad al-Ghābah, vol. 2: 391; Tahdhīb al-Asmā’ wa-al-Lughāt, vol. 1: 218; Mukhtasar Tārīkh Dimashq, vol. 9: 305; Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, vol. 10: 501; Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 2: 286; al-ʿIbar, vol. 1: 64; Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalā’, vol. 3: 444; al-Kāshif, vol. 1: 228; Tajwīd Asmā’ al-Ṣaḥābah, p. 2324; Ikmāl Mughillṭāy, vol. 2: paper 87; al-Wāfī bi-al-Wafayāt, vol. 15: 227; al-ʿAqd al-Thamīn, vol. 4: 517; Nihāyat al-Sūl, p. 117; Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, vol. 4: 48; al-Iṣābah, vol. 2: 47; Khulāṣat al-Khazarjī, p. 139; Shudhūr al-Dhahab, vol. 1: 268; Tahdhīb Ibn ʿAsākir, vol. 6: 133.
(3) Omitted in editions A and Waṭ.
(4) In editions A and Waṭ it is misprinted as “ajniḥah” (wings).
(5) In the primary manuscripts it reads “liḥyah” (beard) and “and what he corroborated from the sources of its transmission.” Indeed, Ibn Abī Dāwūd in al-Muṣaḥḥaf (p. 24) reports from Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz that: “The Arabic of the Qur’ān was established on the tongue of Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ because his dialect most closely resembled that of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.”