being tortured.

He said: “Two lions were kept hungry for Abraham; when they were set upon him, they merely licked him and prostrated before him (1).”

Muʿtamir (2) ibn Sulaymān narrated from his father, from Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī that Salmān’s speech was hardly intelligible because of his heavy foreign accent. He would, for instance, call wood khushbān (3).

This report is transmitted solely by the trustworthy Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqī. Abū Muḥammad ibn Qutaybah rejected the notion—meaning Salmān’s accent—without producing any real proof, saying, “His speech rivals that of the most eloquent Arabs.”

I say: The presence of eloquence does not rule out the presence of an accent in one’s pronunciation, just as many scholars speak fluently yet cannot inflect their words grammatically.

He added: As for khushbān, it is either a plural of a plural, or the word khashab (wood) with an alif and nūn appended, like sūd and sūdān.

ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated from Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān, from Thābit, from Anas who said:

“Saʿd and Ibn Masʿūd entered upon Salmān during his final illness, and he wept. They asked, ‘What makes you weep?’ He replied, ‘A covenant that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ took from us, which we have not upheld. He said: “Let what any of you takes from this world be no more than the provisions of a traveller.”’

‘And as for you, O Saʿd, fear Allah in your judgments when you judge, in your apportioning when you distribute, and in your intentions when you resolve.’