and a night is like fasting for a whole month and standing in prayer during it. Whoever dies while on frontier duty will be spared the trial of the grave, and the reward of his righteous deeds will continue to run for him until the Day of Resurrection. (1)

Abū al-Maʿālī Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq informed us; ʿAbd al-Qawī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Aghlabī informed us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rifāʿah informed us; Abū al-Ḥasan al-Khilāʿī informed us; Abū Muḥammad ibn al-Naḥḥās informed us; Abū Muḥammad ibn al-Ward informed us; Abū Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm informed us; ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām narrated to us, as did Ziyād ibn ʿAbd Allāh, from Ibn Isḥāq (ḥ).

Abū Muḥammad ibn Qudāmah and Abū al-Ghanāʾim ibn ʿAllān likewise related—by written authorization—that Ḥanbal ibn ʿAbd Allāh had informed them; Abū al-Qāsim al-Shaybānī informed us; Abū ʿAlī the preacher informed us; Abū Bakr al-Mālikī narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad narrated to us; my father told me; Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm narrated to us; and my father narrated to us (ḥ).

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr and others transmitted it from Yūnus ibn Bukayr (ḥ).
Sahl ibn ʿUthmān—Yaḥyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah narrated to us (ḥ).
It is also related from Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs (ḥ).
Ḥajjāj ibn Qutaybah—Zufar ibn Qurrah narrated to us, all of them from Ibn Isḥāq, from ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatādah, from Maḥmūd ibn Labīd, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said:

Salmān the Persian told me:

“I was a Persian man from the people of Isfahan, from a village there called Jay (2). My father was the dehqān—the village chief—and I was the most beloved of Allah’s creation to him. His love for me grew until he shut me up in his house as a girl is kept in seclusion.

I applied myself devotedly to Zoroastrianism until I became the keeper of the fire that was lit for worship, never allowing it to go out for a single hour. There was…"