and have me beheaded. So I stayed inside. One day a messenger came to me and said, “O Salman, answer the summons.”

“I swear by Allah,” I replied, “this is exactly what I was dreading.” I went to the Messenger of Allah, who smiled and said, “Rejoice, O Salman, for Allah has granted you relief.” He then recited to me these verses: “Those to whom We gave the Scripture before it—they believe in it … such people shall be given their reward twice over” (Qur’an 28:52-54).

I said, “By Him who sent you with the truth, I heard him say, ‘If I were to meet him and he ordered me to throw myself into the fire, I would do it.’ ”

This ḥadith is denounced (munkar) and odd; the one preceding it is sounder. It is transmitted only by Maslama—Muslim cites him and Ibn Maʿīn deemed him reliable, whereas Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal declared him weak. Qays ibn Ḥafṣ al-Dārimī, al-Bukhārī’s teacher, narrated it from him.

ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Quddūs reported: ʿUbayd al-Maktab narrated to us; he said: Abū al-Ṭufayl informed us; he said: Salman related, “I was one of the people of Jayy, and the inhabitants of my village worshipped piebald horses. I knew they were upon nothing. It was said to me, ‘The religion you seek is in the west.’ So I set out until I reached Mosul. I asked for the most virtuous man there and was directed to a man in a hermitage,” after which he recounted something similar to what has already been mentioned.

Al-Ṭabarānī added at the end of the report: “I said to my master, ‘Sell me my freedom.’ He replied, ‘On condition that you plant for me one hundred date-palms; when they have taken root, bring me the weight of a single date-stone in gold.’ So I went to the Messenger of Allah and informed him. He said, ‘Purchase your freedom for the price he set, and bring me a bucket of water from the river with which you irrigate those palms.’ He then supplicated for me, and—by Allah—I planted one hundred palms and not a single one failed to take root.”