Imam Abū Ṭālib (peace be upon him) said: He (peace be upon him) was black of hair, head and beard, with no grey having mixed into it.

Imam al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī used to swear by God that he feared his charitable offerings might not be accepted from him — because gold, silver, and dust were all of equal value in his estimation.

He made his call in Medina on Saturday, with eleven nights remaining of Dhū al-Qaʿdah in the year 169 AH. He ascended the pulpit, praised God and extolled Him, invoked blessings upon His Prophet ﷺ, and then said:

Among the leaders of the People of the House who pledged allegiance to him were:

• Mūsā al-Kāẓim ibn Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq ibn Muḥammad al-Bāqir
• ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥasan al-Afṭas ibn ʿAlī al-Muthannā and his brother ʿUmar
• Imam Yaḥyā son of ʿAbdullāh al-Kāmil ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan
• Imam Idrīs son of ʿAbdullāh al-Kāmil ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan
• Sulaymān son of ʿAbdullāh al-Kāmil ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan
• Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan father of Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm al-Rassī
• Al-Ḥasan ibn Imam Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan
• ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan
• Others from the groups of the People of the House and their loyal followers may God be pleased with them

He went out with a band of the family of Muḥammad numbering twenty-six men. Together with their followers they came to amount to three hundred and some ten — the number of the people of Badr — drawing their swords, calling to God, acting by the Book of God, confronting the enemies of God, undeterred in His cause by the blame of any blamer.

There met them, from the parties of misguidance and the throngs of falsehood, forty thousand whom Mūsā — called al-Hādī — ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Dawānīq dispatched. The Imam and those with him from the soldiers of God called them to the Book of God and to what his grandfather the Messenger of God ﷺ had brought — but they did not respond. So the Imam charged against them, and the band charged along with him — in the manner that had become the custom of the Imams from the family of the Messenger of God — until they flooded the ground with their blood and were martyred in the path of God, Lord of the Worlds.

Among those killed with him from the People of the House were: Sulaymān ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan, ʿAbdullāh ibn Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan, and others. Imam al-Manṣūr Billāh reported that the faces of those who were present at his killing turned black, every one of them.³

Some of those who witnessed the battle said: He saw the Imam withdraw from the fighting at its fiercest, and bury something in the ground — supposing it to be something precious. When the fighting ended and the Imam and those with him had been killed, he returned to the spot, and found it to be a piece of the Imam’s forehead (may God have mercy on him).

The spot at which he was killed was known to the People of the House. The Messenger of God ﷺ had passed by it and prayed there. When he was in the second unit of prayer, he wept, and the people wept. When he completed his prayer, he said: “What makes you weep?” They said: “When we saw you weep, we wept, O Messenger of God.” He said:

Reported in Al-Shāfī.¹

Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq also passed by Fakhkh and prayed there, and said: “A man from my family will be killed here amid a band of followers whose souls will race ahead of their bodies to Paradise.”²

Imam al-Hādī (peace be upon him) said in Al-Aḥkām:

Imam al-Manṣūr Billāh (peace be upon him) said in Al-Shāfī: Among those who went out with him from the most excellent of people were: Saʿīd ibn Khaytham; ʿAlī ibn Hāshim — known as al-Barīd; Yaḥyā ibn Yaʿlā; ʿĀmir al-Sarrāj; and Naṣr al-Khaffāf, who was among the righteous.

Among his account: he said: “A blow struck me that sliced through flesh and bone, so I spent my night howling from it, while I feared they would come and seize me if they heard the sound. Then sleep overcame me, and I saw the Prophet ﷺ — he had come and taken a bone and placed it upon my upper arm. So I awoke finding no pain at all, neither little nor much.”

When death approached Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān, those around him began prompting him with the testimony of faith, but his tongue would not articulate it. Rather, he kept saying:

He kept repeating this verse until he died.

Among that with which the martyred of Fakhkh were elegised is the saying of ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbdullāh, lamenting al-Ḥusayn, the man of Fakhkh (peace be upon him):

ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalawī said: I saw in a dream a man asking me to recite these verses to him, so I recited them, and he said: “Add to them:

ʿAbd al-Majīd ibn ʿAbdūn said in his Bassāmah:

When it was objected that Gabriel was not reported to have wept except over al-Ḥusayn al-Sibt (peace be upon him), Ibn al-Wazīr responded in his own Bassāmah with the wording: “And the tears of the believers poured down upon…”