From this, it was said:1
Alas, O monastery of the ransomed Hanzala
You have bequeathed me fatigue and toil
I drag a water-skin from the Euphrates to you
And I carry over it scent and perfume
And if they carried the scriptures one day
I would carry chess and backgammon2 to you
O Allah, improve our intentions, purify our inner thoughts and keep us steadfast in Your love, for You are Exalted, Great.
Our Master Al-Sadiq, may his glory be exalted, said about Hanzala bin As'ad Al-Shabāmī, peace be upon him: "Ransomed as his name suggests, because he ransomed his Master Al-Hussein, may his glory be exalted, with himself. So his Master ransomed him with the Opponent. Killing and condemnation fell upon the Opponent, may Allah curse him. Doubt and misguidance fall upon the deniers who say that killing befell our Master Al-Hussein, may his glory be exalted."3
The doubt and misguidance fall upon those who speak of his killing!
Abu Abdullah Al-Hussein bin Hamdan Al-Khuṣaybī said: Ali bin Ahmad Al-Ṭabarānī narrated to me, and he was an old man over a hundred years old. He took my hand while we were at the watering place of Al-Ghāḍiriyyah. It was the Day of Ashura, Friday, the tenth of Muharram, in the year 314 AH. He seated me next to a palm tree on the bank of Al-'Alqamī, then said to me: "O Abu Abdullah, preserve and understand what I tell you. Know that I sat with Our Master Ali Al-Hādī, may his glory be exalted, in this place when I was twenty-seven years old. There were fresh dates before him, and I do not know if they were from this palm tree or another. He said to me: 'Eat.' So I started eating modestly. He said to me: 'O Ali bin Ahmad, you will sit with our Master Al-Hasan (Al-'Askarī) in this place just as you are sitting with me, and you will eat from the fresh dates you are eating now.'