Ibn ʿAsakir relates—in the biography of Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad that appears in his History—citing al-Mujālasa of Aḥmad ibn Marwān al-Mālikī: al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan al-Yashkurī narrated to us, al-Ziyyādī narrated to us, from al-Aṣmaʿī; and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥārith also told me, from al-Madāʾinī, who said:

When the people of al-Ḥarra had been slain, a voice cried out in Mecca from the summit of Abū Qubays that very evening, while Ibn al-Zubayr was sitting and listening:

“The choicest men, sons of the choicest, have been killed—
men of majesty and generosity.

Those who fasted and kept the night vigil,
people of worship and righteousness.

The rightly guided, the beneficent,
the foremost in the race to success.

What now remains in Wāqim or al-Baqīʿ
of those stalwart, radiant heroes?

Alas for the grounds of Yathrib—
filled with lamentation and cries!”

Ibn al-Zubayr then said to his companions, “O people! Your comrades have been killed. Truly, we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.” (1)

Yazīd committed a grave error when he instructed Muslim ibn ʿUqbah to give Madinah over to pillage for three days [in addition to the killing of many Companions and their children; it has already been mentioned that he slew Ḥusayn and his followers through ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyād]. (2)

During those three days acts of corruption took place in the Prophet’s city that defy all measure or description—known only to Allah, exalted is He. Yazīd’s aim in sending Muslim ibn ʿUqbah had been to consolidate his power, secure his dominion, and prolong his days without rival; yet Allah repaid him with the very opposite of what he intended, thwarted his desire, shattered him—the Crusher of tyrants—and seized him with the grasp of the All-Powerful: “Such is the grasp of your Lord when He seizes the cities while they are doing wrong; His grasp is painful, severe” (Hūd 102).

Al-Bukhārī records in his Ṣaḥīḥ (3): al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥurayth (4) narrated to us, al-Faḍl ibn Mūsā narrated to us, al-Juʿayd, from ʿĀʾishah bint Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, from her father, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “No one schemes against the people of Madinah but that he will dissolve away as salt dissolves in water.”

Muslim likewise transmits—from Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Qarrāẓ al-Madani (whose name was Dīnār), on the authority of Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “No one intends evil against Madinah except that Allah will cause him to melt in the Fire like lead—or like salt dissolving in water.” In another narration in Muslim, through Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Qarrāẓ, from Saʿd and Abū Hurayrah, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Whoever plots evil against the people of Madinah, Allah will melt him as salt melts in water.” (5)