Majma al-Zawaid — Hadith 10014

Sayyiduna Abu Rafi' (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates: I was a slave of Sayyiduna al-Abbas bin Abd al-Muttalib (may Allah be pleased with him). I had accepted Islam, Sayyidah Umm al-Fadl (may Allah be pleased with her) had also accepted Islam, and Sayyiduna al-Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) had also accepted Islam, but he used to conceal his Islam out of fear of his people. Abu Lahab could not take part in Badr; he sent in his place al-As bin Hisham, who owed him a debt. He had said to al-As bin Hisham: "Take part in this battle in my place, and I will waive what you owe me," and he did so. When the news (of the outcome of the battle) came, Allah Almighty humiliated Abu Lahab. I was a weak man, and I used to shape arrow-shafts in the chamber of Zamzam. By Allah, I was sitting in the chamber shaping arrow-shafts, and Sayyidah Umm al-Fadl (may Allah be pleased with her) was with me, when the wicked Abu Lahab came dragging his feet. I was watching him until he sat down by the tent-rope, with his back towards my back. The people said: "Here is Abu Sufyan bin al-Harith (coming)." Abu Lahab said: "Come here to me, O my nephew." Abu Sufyan came and sat beside him, and the people came and stood around the two of them. Abu Lahab said: "O my nephew, how did matters go with the people?" He replied: "Nothing. By Allah, when we met them it was as if we offered them our shoulders, so that they killed us however they wished and took us captive however they wished. By Allah, I do not blame the people for it." Abu Lahab asked: "Why is that?" Abu Sufyan said: "I saw some white men mounted on handsome horses; by Allah, nothing was soft for them and nothing could stand before them." Sayyiduna Abu Rafi' (may Allah be pleased with him) says: I lifted the rope of the chamber and said: "By Allah, those must have been the angels." Abu Lahab rose, raised his hand and slapped me on the face. I attacked him too, but he lifted me up and threw me to the ground, until he was on top of me. Sayyidah Umm al-Fadl (may Allah be pleased with her) got up, took one of the posts of the chamber and struck Abu Lahab with it, raising a large swelling on his head. Sayyidah Umm al-Fadl (may Allah be pleased with her) said: "O enemy of Allah, you thought him weak when you saw that his master is not here!" Abu Lahab got up humiliated. By Allah, he lived only seven days after that, until Allah Almighty afflicted him with the adasah (a pustular disease) and caused his death. His sons left him for two or three nights without burying him, until his body began to stink. A man of Quraysh said to his two sons: "Are you not ashamed that your father lies stinking in his house?" The two said: "We fear this sore," for Quraysh used to avoid the adasah just as they avoided the plague. A man said: "Go, the two of you, and I will be with you." The narrator says: By Allah, they did not wash him; they threw water on him from a distance, then carried him and threw him beside a wall in the upper part of Makkah, and threw stones over him.
Al-Tabarani and al-Bazzar recorded it. Its chain contains Husayn bin Abdullah bin Ubaydullah, whom Abu Hatim and others declared thiqah (trustworthy) and a group declared da'if (weak); the rest of its narrators are thiqat (trustworthy).