when Muslim heard the sound of the hooves of the horses and voices of the people, he perceived that they had come for him and he unsheathed his sword. The people had entered the house and scattered therein, seeing this he attacked them fiercely. When they saw this, they ran up to the roof and started hurling stones and burning wood upon his head. When Muslim saw this he muttered to himself,
“Verily this struggle is for the sake of the murder of the son of Aqeel. O my self! Go forth towards the inevitable death.”
Then he drew his sword and confronted them in the streets.
Mas’oodi and others say that when combat ensued between Muslim bin Aqeel (a.s.) and Bukayr bin Humran Ahmari, Bukayr struck the mouth of Muslim bin Aqeel with his sword, which cut the upper lip and landed on the lower one cutting it too. Muslim dealt a terrible blow upon his head and another on his shoulder, which reached his stomach. Muslim was reciting the following Rajaz:
“I swear, I will only be killed as a free man, although I consider death as something horrible, every man one day will meet an evil, I fear that I will be cheated and deluded.”
He killed forty-one people out of them. Muhammad bin Abu Talib says that when Muslim had killed numerous men, and this news reached Ubaydullah, he dispatched someone to Muhammad bin Ash’as with a message that,
“We have sent you to (fight) a single man and commanded you to bring him to us, while a severe crack is visible among your men. Then what would be your state if we sent you to someone other than him”?
Muhammad replied back,
“O commander! Do you think that you have sent us in pursuit of a vegetable vendor of Kufa or a foreign refugee? Do you not know that you have sent us against a ferocious lion, a swordsman, and a renowned champion, who is from the family of the best of creations.”
Reference : Nafasul Mahmoom – Shaikh abbas Qummi (r.a.)