The Elegy and the End

When the Prophet ﷺ died, Hassan composed elegies for him, among the most moving in Arabic. They speak of a grief so deep that the sun seemed to darken, and of a man whom no one could replace. They are preserved in the collections of his poetry, and Muslim scholars have long treasured them, though, as the biographers note, not every verse attributed to him can be traced with certainty.

He lived on into old age and went blind. When 'A'ishah was asked about the Qur'an's warning of "a great punishment" for those who had spread the slander, she replied that there could be no greater punishment than blindness, and she added that he used to defend the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

He died in Madinah in the caliphate of Mu'awiyah, around 54 AH, though the sources give dates from 40 to 58 AH. Some say he lived a hundred and twenty years, sixty before Islam and sixty after, but this is a famous claim and not a certain one. He is remembered as the man who showed that words, too, can be a form of jihad.