It is also related that al-Ḥajjāj came in to see her after he had slain her son and said, “Mother, the Commander of the Believers has commended you to my care. Do you have any need?”
She replied, “I am no mother of yours; I am the mother of the man who was crucified on al-Thaniyyah. I have no need of you. Yet I will tell you that I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say:
“From Thaqīf there will emerge a liar and a ruthless destroyer.” (1)
The liar we have already seen, and as for the destroyer, I see no one but you.”
Al-Ḥajjāj answered, “I am the destroyer of the hypocrites.”

It is likewise said that Ibn ʿUmar entered with al-Ḥajjāj while her son was still crucified and told her, “This body is nothing; the souls are with Allah. So fear Allah and be patient.”
She replied, “What would keep me from patience when the head of Yaḥyā son of Zakariyyā was once presented to a prostitute from among the Children of Israel?”

Another report states that she washed him, embalmed him, shrouded him, perfumed him, prayed over him, and then buried him; a few days later, toward the end of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, she herself passed away. (2)

When she grew old, al-Zubayr divorced her.
Some say that his son ʿAbd Allah told him, “A man of my stature cannot have his mother sharing a bed with anyone,” so al-Zubayr divorced her.
Others report that she and al-Zubayr fell into a dispute, whereupon ʿAbd Allah came to reconcile them. Al-Zubayr said, “If you enter, she is divorced,” and he entered, so the divorce became final—Allah knows best. (3)

Asmāʾ lived to a ripe old age and, according to one account, lost her sight near the end of her life—although another version says she remained sharp-eyed and never lost a single tooth. (4)
She witnessed her son’s killing in this very year, and then died five days after him; some say ten days, others twenty, others a few and twenty. Another report maintains she lived a hundred days after him, and that is the more widely held view. She reached the age of one hundred years without losing a single tooth, and her mind never failed—may Allah have mercy on her. She transmitted a number of noble and blessed hadith from the Prophet ﷺ, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, and may He show her mercy.

Ibn Jarīr said (5): “In this same year—73 AH—ʿAbd al-Malik removed Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allah from the governorship of Basra and added it to his brother Bishr ibn Marwān, who already held Kūfa. Bishr departed for Basra and appointed ʿAmr ibn Ḥurayth as his deputy over Kūfa.

“In that year Muḥammad ibn Marwān led the summer campaign and routed the Byzantines.

“It is also said that during this year ʿUthmān ibn al-Walīd fought the Byzantines on the Armenian front with four thousand men against their sixty thousand; he defeated them and inflicted heavy casualties. Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf supervised the pilgrimage for the people in this year.”