Al-Ḥuṣayn said: “When al-Ḥusayn was killed, for two—some say three—months it looked as though the very walls were smeared with blood from the moment the sun rose until it had climbed high.” (1)
Abū Mikhnaf relates: Lawdhān—one of the Banū ʿIkrimah (2)—told me that one of his uncles asked al-Ḥusayn, “Where are you heading?” Al-Ḥusayn explained his intention. The uncle replied, “I adjure you by Allah, turn back! By Allah, not a single man ahead of you will defend you or fight at your side. By Allah, you are going straight toward spear-points and swords. Had those who summoned you spared you the burden of fighting and cleared the way, so that you came to them afterward, that would have been sound judgment; but under the present circumstances I do not see that you should proceed.”
Al-Ḥusayn answered, “Nothing you have said or observed is hidden from me, yet Allah’s decree can never be thwarted.” He then set out for Kufah.
Khalid ibn al-ʿĀṣ quoted the verse:
“More than once a would-be counsellor betrays and destroys,
while the one deemed suspect proves a loyal guide.” (3)
That year ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ led the people in the pilgrimage; he was Yazid’s governor over Medina and Mecca. Yazid had dismissed al-Walīd ibn ʿUtbah from the governorship of Medina and, in Ramadan of that same year, appointed ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ in his place. ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyād, meanwhile, was governor of Basrah and Kufah. (4)
[The year 61 AH begins]
The new year dawned with al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī already on the road to Kufah, somewhere between Mecca and Iraq, accompanied by his companions and kinsfolk. He was killed on the Day of ʿĀshūrāʾ in Muḥarram of that year, as affirmed by al-Wāqidī and many others; some claim he was killed in Ṣafar, but the first view is sounder.
What follows is an account of his death drawn from the statements of the foremost authorities on the subject—not from the blatant fabrications and slanders propagated by the Shīʿah.
Abū Mikhnaf said: [This report comes] from Abū Janāb, from ʿAdī ibn Ḥarmla, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Sulaym (5) and al-Mudhri ibn