I read to ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Taghlibī; Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣūfī informed you in the year 620 AH; Abu Ṭāhir al-Salafī informed us; ʿAbd Allah al-Thaqafī informed us; Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan informed us; Ḥājib ibn Aḥmad narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Raḥīm—namely, ibn Munīb—narrated to us; Sufyān narrated to us, from al-Zuhrī, from Ṭalḥah, from Saʿīd ibn Zayd, who traced the report back to the Prophet ﷺ, who said:
“Whoever wrongfully seizes even a handspan of land will have it placed as a collar around his neck from seven earths, and whoever is killed while defending his property is a martyr. (1)”
This ḥadith possesses a sound chain, yet it is interrupted, for Ṭalḥah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAwf did not hear it directly from Saʿīd.
It was also transmitted by Mālik, Yūnus, and a number of others from al-Zuhrī, and they inserted between Ṭalḥah and Saʿīd: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr ibn Sahl (2) al-Anṣārī.
Al-Bukhārī recorded it through Abū al-Yamān, from Shuʿayb, from al-Zuhrī.
His father, Zayd (3) ibn ʿAmr, was among those who fled to Allah from idol-worship. He roamed the Syrian lands in search of the upright religion, observed the Christians and the Jews, and found their religions distasteful,