Nusayy, from Ibn Ghanm, who said:

“I heard Abū ʿUbaydah and ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit both say: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘Muʿādh ibn Jabal is the most knowledgeable of mankind, first and last, after the prophets and messengers, and Allah indeed boasts of him before the angels.’”

Al-Ḥākim recorded it in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1), but he was mistaken, for ʿUbayd is an unknown narrator, so it is quite possible he fabricated the report.

Al-Aʿmash, from Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, from al-Ḥārith ibn ʿUmayrah, said:

“I was sitting with Muʿādh while he was dying; he would lapse into unconsciousness and then regain awareness, and he kept saying, ‘Tighten the stranglehold as you will—for by Your might, I truly love You.’” (2)

Yahyā ibn Bukayr said: I heard Mālik say, “He is ahead of the scholars by a ratwah (3).”

He died at twenty-eight years of age; others say he was thirty-two.

Hushaym narrated to us, from ʿAlī ibn Zayd, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, who said: “Muʿādh died when he was thirty-three—or thirty-four—years old.”

Al-Madāʾinī, from Abū Sufyān al-Ghudānī (4), from Thawr, from Khālid ibn Maʿdān, reported that ʿAbd Allah ibn Qurt said:

“I was present at the death of Muʿādh ibn Jabal, and he said, ‘Set me down gently; I shall meet Allah at the age of Jesus son of Mary—thirty-three, or thirty-four, years.’”