al-Ash'ath ibn Qays al-Kindi

الأشعث بن قيس الكندي

c. 661 CE · c. 41 AH† †

† Hijri date derived by computation from the Gregorian/Julian date; it may differ from the transmitted date by a day or two.

A lord of Kinda, kunya Abu Muhammad, nicknamed 'Urf al-Nar; he apostatized under Abu Bakr and fortified himself with the chiefs of Kinda in al-Nujayr, which Ziyad ibn Labid and al-Muhajir ibn Abi Umayya besieged until they were exhausted, whereupon he asked safety for a number of them leaving himself out of the count; brought to Abu Bakr, who told him 'we fight you, for there is no safety for you having excluded yourself', he answered 'rather favour me, O caliph of God's messenger, and marry me' — so he spared him and married him to his sister Umm Farwa bint Abi Quhafa (some say Qurayba), who bore him Muhammad, Ishaq, Qurayba, Hubaba and Ja'da; he stayed in Medina then went to Syria and Iraq as a campaigner, died at Kufa, and al-Hasan ibn Ali prayed over him after his peace with Mu'awiya; Abu Bakr later regretted sparing him — 'I wish that the day al-Ash'ath was brought to me I had struck his neck, for it came to me that he sees no evil but hastens to it and aids it'; he borrowed from Medina's merchants the ransom of al-Nujayr's captives — four hundred dirhams a head — redeemed them and repaid it; and when he married her he went to the market and finding no camel to profit her uncovered her shanks, paid its price and fed the people.