13 – ʿAbbās ibn Hishām narrated to us, from his father, from his grandfather, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said:

“The tyranny of Iyād ibn Nizār over his brothers Muḍar and Rabīʿa, the two sons of Nizār, grew so extreme that more than twenty children would be born among Iyād, while in the whole of a month Rabīʿa and Muḍar would see only a single birth. Iyād swelled in numbers and waxed arrogant until they filled the region of Tihāma.

“Their oppression reached the point that if an Iyādite planted his arrow on the doorway of a man from Rabīʿa or Muḍar, the Iyādite was held to have a stronger claim to the house and its contents than the owner himself.

“Among them was an elderly man who had been granted a long life and who detested much of what they were doing. He said to them, ‘My people, by Allah, you have no superiority over your brothers in lineage: the father is one and the mother is one. Your only advantage is numbers and extravagance. So desist, for I fear that Allah may send down a punishment upon you.’

“They paid no heed, so Allah unleashed upon them an illness called al-nikhāʿ. It struck them until, within a single day and night, entire groups perished.”