community until he set his heart on the life of this world, contested the caliphate with those to whom it belonged, cast off obedience to Allah, and committed sacrilege within Allah’s Sacred Precinct. If Mecca were something that could avert a divine decree, the sanctity of Paradise would surely have protected Adam, for Allah created him with His own hand, breathed into him of His spirit, caused His angels to prostrate to him, and taught him the names of all things. Yet when he disobeyed, Allah expelled him from Paradise and sent him down to earth—and Adam was more honored by Allah than Ibn al-Zubayr. Indeed, Ibn al-Zubayr even altered the Book of Allah!”

ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar replied, “If I wished to say to you ‘You have lied,’ I would say it. By Allah, Ibn al-Zubayr never altered the Book of Allah. On the contrary, he upheld it, fasted often, and acted upon the truth.”]

Al-Hajjaj then wrote to ʿAbd al-Malik informing him of Ibn al-Zubayr’s death. He sent Ibn al-Zubayr’s head together with the heads of ʿAbd Allah ibn Ṣafwān and ʿAmārah ibn ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm to ʿAbd al-Malik, ordering that when the messengers passed through Madinah the heads be displayed there before being taken on to Syria. They carried out his command. The heads were entrusted to a man from the tribe of Azd; ʿAbd al-Malik rewarded him with five hundred dinars, then brought scissors and cut a lock from his own forelock and from the forelocks of his sons in jubilation over Ibn al-Zubayr’s death—may Allah requite them as they deserve.

Al-Hajjaj next ordered that Ibn al-Zubayr’s body be crucified on the rise of Kaddah by al-Ḥajūn, head downward, where it remained until ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar passed by and said, “May Allah have mercy on you, Abū Khubaib. By Allah, you were a man of much fasting and much standing in prayer.” He then added, “Has the time not come for this rider to dismount?” Al-Hajjaj therefore ordered the body taken down from the stake, and it was buried on the spot.

Al-Hajjaj entered Mecca, took the people’s oath of allegiance to ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, and remained there, overseeing the pilgrimage that same year while holding authority over Mecca, al-Yamāmah, and Yemen.

Here follows the biography of the Commander of the Believers, ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr:

(1) He is ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām ibn Khuwaylid ibn Asad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn Quṣayy ibn Kilāb, Abū Bakr—though he is also called Abū Khubaib—al-Qurashi al-Asadi. He was the first child born in Medina to the Emigrants after the Hijrah. His mother was Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him), the lady of the two sashes. She migrated while full-term and gave birth to him at Qubāʾ soon after the Muslims arrived in Medina.

It is also said that she bore him in Shawwāl of the second year after the Hijrah; this was the view of al-Wāqidī, Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī, and others. The first opinion, however, is sounder, as related by Aḥmad (2) from Abū Usāmah, from Hishām, from his father, from Asmāʾ, who said: “I was pregnant with ʿAbd Allah in Mecca. I left while full-term, came to Medina, and stopped at Qubāʾ, where I gave birth to him. I then brought him to the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—who placed him in his lap, called for a date, chewed it, and rubbed it into his mouth; thus the first thing to enter his stomach was the saliva of the Messenger of Allah. He then performed his taḥnīk, supplicated for him, and blessed him.”

He was therefore the first child born in Islam. He became a noble Companion, transmitting hadiths from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—as well as from his father, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and others. A number of the Successors narrated from him. He fought at Yarmūk alongside his father while still a boy and attended ʿUmar’s sermon at al-Jābiyah, which he later reported in full.