Among the fine ḥadīths he related is what he heard directly from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who said:
"The lawful (ḥalāl) is clear, and the unlawful (ḥarām) is clear, and between the two are doubtful matters that many people do not know. Whoever guards himself against the doubtful has safeguarded his religion and his honor; but whoever becomes entangled in the doubtful will inevitably fall into the unlawful, like a shepherd who lets his flock graze around a royal preserve—sooner or later he is bound to enter it. Indeed, every king has a preserve, and the preserve of Allah is His prohibitions. Truly, within the body is a morsel of flesh: if it is sound, the whole body is sound, and if it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Verily, it is the heart." Reported by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. (1)
Abū Mus-hir said: Al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr was governor of Ḥimṣ on behalf of Ibn al-Zubayr. When the people of Ḥimṣ mutinied, al-Nuʿmān fled; Khālid ibn Khalī pursued him and killed him. Abū ʿUbayd and several others maintained that this occurred in that very same year.
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, through his chains of transmission, narrated that Muʿāwiyah had married a woman (2) of surpassing beauty. He sent one of his two wives—either Maysūn (3) or Fākhtah—to look at her. When she saw the woman she was greatly impressed, and on her return Muʿāwiyah asked, "How did you find her?" She answered, "Exquisite in beauty, but I noticed beneath her navel a black mole, and I think her husband will be slain and his head placed in her lap." Muʿāwiyah thereupon divorced her, and al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr married her. When he was killed, his head was indeed brought and set in her lap in the year 65 AH.
Abū Sulaymān ibn Zabr (4) said that he was killed at Salamiyah (5) in the year 66 AH (6). Others said it was in 65 AH, and some said in 60 AH; the correct view is what we have stated.
Among those who also died in that year was al-Miswar (7) ibn Makhramah ibn Nawfal (8), a young Companion, who was struck by a stone from a catapult while he was with Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca.