Muḥammad ibn Saʿd said, “He passed away in this very year, and he has transmitted hadiths.”

Those who also died this year include:

Abū Wāqid al-Laythī (1), a venerable Companion. Scholars disagree about his personal name and about whether he fought at Badr.

Al-Wāqidī stated: “He died in the year 68 AH at the age of sixty-five,” and more than one authority gives the same dating. Others claimed he lived to seventy. He died in Mecca after spending a year in residence there and was buried in the Cemetery of the Muhājirūn.

Humayd ibn Thawr al-Turabī (2), the famous poet. He composed verse in the days of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and is ranked among the foremost poets (3).

Then the year 69 AH began.

In it ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān put to death ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd al-Ashdaq al-Umawī. The cause was that, at the start of the year, ʿAbd al-Malik rode out with his troops toward Qarqīsiyā to lay siege to Zufar ibn al-Ḥārith al-Kilābī, who had assisted Sulaymān ibn Ṣurad against Marwān’s army when they fought at ʿAyn al-Warda.

Zufar ibn al-Ḥārith had fled on the day of Marj Rāhiṭ, renounced Marwān, and pledged allegiance to Ibn al-Zubayr. Marwān therefore dispatched ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyād with sixty thousand men, promising him whatever territory of Iraq he could conquer. When ʿUbayd Allah reached the Jazīrah region, news of Marwān’s death reached him. He had already besieged Zufar for some time, after which the Army of the Penitents arrived; ʿUbayd Allah fought them and defeated them, then returned to the siege of Zufar. When al-Mukhtār sent his forces under Ibn al-Ashʿath, they routed the Syrian army and killed ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyād, as we have mentioned. Only then did ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān equip his forces and set out with his armies to fight Zufar (4).