Thābit said: I was informed that he left nothing behind except a little over twenty dirhams—no more than a handful of small coins he had kept (1).
Shaybān narrated—from Firās, from al-Shaʿbī, from al-Hārith, from Buqayrah (2), the wife of Salmān—that she said:
“When death approached him he summoned me while he was in an upper room of his house that had four doors. He said, ‘Open these doors, for I am expecting visitors today and I do not know through which of them they will come in to me.
Then bring some musk, mix it in a basin, and sprinkle it around my bed.’
I looked in on him and found that his soul had been taken; he lay upon his bed as though asleep (3).”
Baqiyy ibn Makhlad reported: Ibn Abī Shaybah narrated to us; Abū Muʿāwiyah narrated to us, from ʿĀṣim, from
(1) A sound (sahih) hadith. It is also reported by Ibn Majah, no. 4104 (Book of Zuhd, chapter: Renunciation of the World); by Abu Nuaym, Hilyat al-Awliya, 1:196-197; and by al-Tabarani, no. 6069—and again no. 6160—through the chain of Hammad b. Salama → Ali b. Zayd → Said b. al-Musayyib and Humayd b. Murriq al-Ajli: Saʿd b. Malik and Ibn Masʿud visited Salman during his final illness, and he wept. They asked, “Why do you weep, Abu ʿAbd Allah?” He replied, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ gave us a covenant that none of us has kept: ‘Let the share of any one of you from this world be like the provisions of a traveller.’ ” Humayd added: “They then looked around his house and found only a packsaddle and the like.”
The report is likewise in the Musnad of Ahmad, 5:438, via Hishim → Mansur → al-Hasan: when Salman was at the point of death he wept and said, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ bound us by a covenant, yet we have ignored it: that each of us should have from the world only what equals a traveller’s provision.” They valued what he left behind and found it to be just over twenty—or just over thirty—dirhams.
Ibn Hibban (no. 2480) authenticated the hadith through the route of Ibn Wahb → Abu Hani → Abu ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Hubuli → ʿAmir b. ʿAbd Allah → Salman al-Khair. Al-Hakim, 4:317, also transmitted it through al-Aʿmash → Abu Sufyan → his shaykhs, declared it sahih, and al-Dhahabi concurred. In al-Munjid the word nafīqa was misprinted as balīqa.
(2) In the printed edition the word is corrupted to “nafira.”
(3) Related by Abu Nuaym, Hilyat al-Awliya, 1:208, and cited by al-Haythami, Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid, 9:344, who notes that al-Tabarani transmits it through al-Jazl from Buqayra; these two narrators are unknown, while the remaining transmitters are trustworthy. Ibn Saʿd likewise records it, 4/1/66. The phrase adifīhi means “mix it,” and al-tawr is a copper or stone basin used for water. The manuscript reads awdifīhi, but we have adopted adifīhi in agreement with Ibn al-Athir’s Gharib al-Hadith, the Hilya, and the Majmaʿ.