“March forth, whether light or heavy” (Q 9:41); I can see myself only as either light or heavy. (1)
Humām narrated, through ʿĀṣim ibn Bahdala, from an unnamed transmitter, that Abū Ayyūb said to Yazīd: “Convey my salām to the people; then set off with me and carry me as far forward as you possibly can.” He said: so they did. (2)
Al-Wāqidī said: He died the year Yazīd campaigned against Constantinople during the caliphate of his father.
It has reached me that the Byzantines still tend his grave, restore it, and seek rain by means of it.
ʿUrwah and the rest include him among those who fought at Badr. (3)
Ibn Isḥāq said: He was present at the second Pledge of ʿAqabah. (4)
Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn al-Najjār said: He was given that epithet because he circumcised himself with an adze. (5)
Ibn Isḥāq also reported that the Prophet ﷺ established a bond of brotherhood between Abū Ayyūb and Muṣʿab ibn ʿUmayr.
Abū Ayyūb took part in every single battle. (6)
(1) Reported by Ibn Saad, 3/485, through Ismail b. Ibrahim al-Asadi; all the transmitters are reliable. “Muhammad” refers to Muhammad b. Sirin. The same wording appears in Tadhhib Ibn Asakir, 5/46. The manuscript reads “thumma tabayagh”; the editor has added the note “sahh” (sound) above the word. The verb tabayagh is used when blood surges back and forth, or when water hesitates in its channel, moving now this way, now that. Al-Tabaqat, al-Nihaya, Usd al-Ghaba, and Tadhhib Ibn Asakir instead read “thumma sagh.” Ibn al-Athir explains sagha as “enter wherever you find an opening”; hence “the earth saghat (sank)” and “the drink yasugh in the throat,” meaning it goes down smoothly.
(2) Ibn Saad, 3/485; Ahmad, 5/416.
(3) Ibn Saad, 3/485; Tadhhib Ibn Asakir, 5/46. See also Abu Zur‘a, Tarikh Dimashq, 1/188 and 226.
(4) Tadhhib Ibn Asakir, 5/40.
(5) Al-qadum is the adze (axe) used for shaping wood. Tadhhib Ibn Asakir, 5/40, notes that he was nicknamed “al-Najjar” (the carpenter) because he planed a man’s face with a qadum.
(6) Ibn Saad, 3/484; Tadhhib Ibn Asakir, 5/40.