Buried at the Walls

On that campaign Abu Ayyub fell ill, and when he could no longer fight, Yazid ibn Mu'awiyah visited him and asked if he had a request. Abu Ayyub asked that when he died he be carried as far as possible into enemy land and buried under his feet. The army did what he asked and buried him beneath the walls.

On his deathbed he also told those around him a saying he had held back until then. He had heard the Prophet ﷺ say that if people did not sin, Allah would create a people who would sin and then ask forgiveness, and He would forgive them. He told it, the scholars said, so that he would not die having concealed knowledge, and so that people would never despair of mercy.

The tomb became a place of reverence in later centuries, and stories were told of the Byzantines tending it. Those stories are late, and what is certain is only his burial there, in a land where he had come a very long way from the house in Madinah where he had hosted his guest.