Mu'jam Kabir Tabarani 4176 — The Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent out

It is narrated from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him); he said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) sent out a detachment to gather intelligence for him, and appointed Asim bin Thabit (may Allah be pleased with him) as their commander, who was the grandfather of Asim bin Umar. They set out until, when they were encamped somewhere on the road between Usfan and Makkah, a clan of Hudhayl called Banu Lihyan was told of them (their arrival). So they followed them with (a band of) archers and tracked their traces until they came to a place where they had camped and found date stones there from the Madinah dates they had taken as provision, and (the enemy) said: "These are from the dates of Yathrib." So they followed their traces until they caught up with them. When Asim bin Thabit and his companions sensed them, they took refuge on a high place, and the people came and surrounded them and said: "You have our covenant and pledge that if you come down to us, we will not kill a single man among you." Asim bin Thabit said: "As for me, I will not come down under the protection of a disbeliever. O Allah, inform Your Messenger about us." The narrator said: So they fought them and shot arrows at them until they killed Asim along with seven companions, and Khubayb bin Adi and Zayd bin al-Dathinah remained, until they sold them in Makkah. Banu al-Harith bin Amir bin Nawfal bought Khubayb, and al-Harith had been killed on the day of Badr. So he remained with them as a captive until, when they had resolved to kill him, he asked one of the daughters of al-Harith for a razor to shave (his pubic hair) with, and she lent it to him. She said: Then I became heedless of a little boy of mine, and he crawled over to him. She said: He picked him up and seated him on his thigh. When I saw this, I was struck with such fear that Khubayb recognised it in my face, while the razor was in his hand. He said: "Do you fear that I will kill him? I would not do that, in sha' Allah (if Allah wills)." The narrator said: She used to say (afterwards): "I never saw a captive better than Khubayb. I saw him eating from a bunch of grapes, when there was no fruit in Makkah at that time, and he was shackled in iron. It was nothing but provision that Allah had granted him." The narrator said: Then they took him out of the Haram to kill him, and he said: "Let me pray two rak'ahs." So he prayed two rak'ahs, then said: "Were it not that you would think I had become afraid of death, I would have prayed more." So he was the first to establish the sunnah of praying two rak'ahs at the time of being killed. Then he said: "O Allah, count them one by one (and destroy them)." Then he recited these verses:
I do not care, when I am killed as a Muslim, on which side my death falls in the way of Allah;
That is for the sake of Allah alone, and if He wills, He will bless the joints of a body torn to pieces. Then Uqbah bin al-Harith advanced towards him and killed him. The narrator said: And Quraysh sent (people) to Asim (his body) to bring back some part of his body by which they could recognise him, because he had killed one of their great chiefs on the day of Badr. But Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, sent something like a cloud of hornets to protect him, which shielded him from the people Quraysh had sent, and they could not obtain anything of his body.