–namely blindness—so he introduced himself until Ibn ʿUmar recognised him. Ibn ʿUmar said, “Are you the one who, in a single morning, slew five thousand men who affirm Allah’s oneness?” Muṣʿab excused himself, saying that they had given their pledge to al-Mukhtār.
Ibn ʿUmar replied, “Was there not among them someone acting under coercion or out of ignorance, whom you could have spared until he repented? Consider: were a man to come upon al-Zubayr’s flock and slaughter five thousand sheep in one morning, would he not be deemed wasteful?”
Muṣʿab answered, “Indeed.”
Ibn ʿUmar said, “Those sheep neither worship Allah nor know Him as mankind does—so what of men who proclaim His oneness?” Then he added, “My son, drink cool water while you can.” In another wording he said, “Live as long as you are able.”
Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār narrated: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan told me, from Zufar ibn Qutaybah, from al-Kalbī, that ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān once asked his courtiers, “Who is the bravest and most generous of the Arabs (1)?” Some answered, “Shabīb”; others said, “Qaṭarī ibn al-Fujāʾah,” and so forth.
ʿAbd al-Malik said, “The bravest of men and the noblest of the Arabs is a man who united in marriage Sukaynah bint al-Ḥusayn, ʿĀʾishah bint Ṭalḥah, and Amat al-Ḥamīd bint ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿĀmir ibn Kurayz; whose mother was Rabāb bint Anīf al-Kalbī, lord of the desert Arabs; who governed the two Iraqs for five years, acquired a million, and a million, and yet another million, and distributed it among the people; whose four wives were the most distinguished and beautiful women of their age; who was offered safe-conduct yet refused, and walked on with his sword until he died an honourable death—that (3) is Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr, not some fellow who keeps cutting the bridges, now here and now there.”
They said that his death occurred on Thursday, the fifteenth of Jumāda al-Ūlā in the year 72 AH.
Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār also reported: Fulayḥ ibn Ismāʿīl and Jaʿfar ibn Abī Kathīr told me, from their father, that when Muṣʿab’s head was placed before ʿAbd al-Malik he recited:
He it was who felled the horsemen on the Day of ʿAbs,
a youth who never withheld his stores;
who rejoiced not over bounty when it came,
nor quailed at the blows of fate;
who never glanced back while the mares were racing,
nor had a patron as hollow as a reed.
The man who had brought the head said, “By Allah, Commander of the Faithful, had you seen him—now with spear in hand, now with sword—slashing with one, thrusting with the other, you would have beheld a man who filled both heart and eye with courage. But when his men scattered, those who sought him became many, and he was left alone, he kept reciting:
When hardship looms I chide myself,
while tears betray the eyes;
not out of weakness, but protective zeal
with which I guard my honour when nobility is at stake.
Toward men of evil I am poised with evil in return,
yet before the man of peace I am humbler than the earth.”