‘My Lord, if You have withheld victory from us from the heaven, then ordain what is better in its place, and take vengeance upon the oppressors.’
ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUqbah al-Ghanawī then loosed an arrow at Abū Bakr ibn al-Ḥusayn and killed him as well.
After that ʿAbd Allah, al-ʿAbbās, ʿUthmān, Jaʿfar, and Muḥammad—the sons of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and brothers of al-Ḥusayn—were slain.
Al-Ḥusayn’s thirst had now become severe. He tried to reach the water of the Euphrates to drink, but they barred him from it. When at last he managed to take a mouthful, a man—said to be Ḥuṣayn ibn Tamīm—shot an arrow into his palate, lodging it there. Al-Ḥusayn pulled it out, blood gushing forth; he caught the blood in his hands, lifted them toward the sky while they were filled with it, then flung it upward, saying:
‘O Allah, count them one by one, destroy them piecemeal, and leave not a single one of them upon the earth.’ He invoked against them with an eloquent curse.
[The narrator said: By Allah, the archer did not survive long before Allah smote him with a consuming thirst. Chilled water was brought to him, and sometimes milk cooled together with water, yet he could not slake his thirst. He kept saying, ‘Woe to you, give me drink! Thirst is killing me.’ By Allah, it was only a short while before his belly split open, like the split belly of a camel.
Then Shamir ibn Dhī al-Jawshan advanced with about ten infantrymen from Kūfa toward the quarters of al-Ḥusayn where his valuables and family were housed. He moved toward them, and they interposed themselves between him and his camp.
Al-Ḥusayn said to them, ‘Woe to you! If you have no religion and do not fear the Day of Return, then at least be free men in this world and men of noble stock. Keep my camp and my family from your tyrants and your fools.’
Ibn Dhī al-Jawshan replied, ‘That we shall grant you, son of Fāṭimah.’ They then surrounded him, while Shamir egged them on to kill him.
Abū al-Janūb said to him, ‘What keeps you—so bold as you are—from killing him yourself?’
Shamir retorted, ‘You say that to me?’
Abū al-Janūb replied, ‘And you say that to me?’ They cursed one another for a while. Abū al-Janūb—who was a brave man—then said, ‘By Allah, I am close to plunging this spear into your eye.’ At that Shamir withdrew. ⦗1⦘
Shamir returned with a band of warriors and they encircled al-Ḥusayn as he stood by his pavilion; none remained with him who could stand between them and him. From the tents a boy dashed out, shining like the full moon, two pearls swinging from his ears. Zaynab bint ʿAlī rushed out to restrain him, but he refused and ran to defend his uncle. One of the men struck him with a sword; the boy warded the blow with his hand, and it was severed, hanging by the skin.
He cried, ‘O father!’
Al-Ḥusayn said, ‘My son, seek your reward with Allah; you will soon join your righteous forefathers.’ ⦗2⦘
Then the men charged al-Ḥusayn from every side while he wheeled among them with his sword, striking right and left, so that they scattered from him like goats fleeing a lion.
His sister Zaynab bint Fāṭimah came out to him, crying, ‘Would that the sky might fall upon the earth!’
She approached ʿUmar ibn Saʿd and said, ‘O ʿUmar! Are you content that Abū ʿAbd Allah be slain while you merely look on?!’—and tears streamed