He is only a sick lad!

He is only a sick lad!"[^10] He said, "Ibn Ziyad ordered all al-Husayn’s sons killed." Ibn Sa'd went to extremes to stop him[^11] especially after having heard the wise lady Zainab daughter of the Commander of the Faithful (ﻉ) saying, "You will not kill him before killing me first;" so, they left him alone[^12]. Ibn Sa'd himself came to the ladies who burst in tears upon seeing him. He ordered the men to stay away from them.

Those men had already taken all the ornaments those ladies had had and never returned any of them back. He assigned to a group of men the task of protecting them, then he returned to his tent.

The Steed Ibn Sa'd shouted, "Who volunteers to make sure that the chest and the back of al-Husayn (ﻉ) are run over by the horses?" Ten men stood up.[^13] Those miscreant "volunteers" were: Ishaq ibn Hawiyyah, al-Ahbash ibn Murshid ibn Alqamah ibn Salamah al-Hadrami, Hakeem ibn at-Tufayl as-Sinbisi, Amr ibn Sabeeh as-Saydawi, Raja’ ibn Munqith al-Abdi, Salim ibn Khaythamah al-Jufi, Salih ibn Wahab al-Jufi, Wakhit ibn Ghanim, Hani ibn Thabeet al-Hadrami, and Aseed ibn Malik.

They rode their horses and trampled upon the body of the fragrant flower of the Messenger of Allah... Ibn Ziyad ordered liberal awards to be given to them[^14]. Al-Bayruni has said that they did to al-Husayn (ﻉ) what no other nation had ever done to their most evil ones: killing with the sword or the spear, with stone throwing, and with horse trampling[^15]. Some of those horses reached Egypt were their shoes were pulled out and fixed on doors as means of seeking blessings.

This became a custom among them, so much so that many of them started making the like of those shoes and hanging them over the doors of their houses.[^16] The Severed Heads Ibn Sa'd ordered the heads to be severed from their bodies. They were distributed to various tribes that used them as means to seek favour with Ibn Ziyad. The Kindah tribe took thirteen brought by their envoy Qays ibn al-Ash'ath. The Hawazin tribe brought twelve with their "man" Shimr ibn Thul-Jawshan.

The Tameem tribe brought seventeen; the Banu Asad tribe brought sixteen; the Mathhaj tribe brought seven, and the other tribes brought the rest[^17]. The tribe to which al-Hurr ar-Riyahi belonged refused to cut anyone’s head or to let their horses trample on the Imam’s body[^18]. On the tenth day, Ibn Sa'd had already entrusted the head of Imam al-Husayn (ﻉ) to Khawli ibn Yazid al-Asbahi and Hameed ibn Muslim al-Azdi.