tell him to come to me bringing a shoulder-blade and an inkwell.’
He (al-Barāʾ) said: When Zayd arrived, the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Write: “Those who remain behind are not equal…” (al-Nisāʾ 4:84),’ and he related the remainder of the report. (1)
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām narrated to us from Zaynab bint ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shaʿriyyah; Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh also narrated to us from Zaynab and ʿAbd al-Muʿizz al-Harawī; they said:
Zāhir ibn Ṭāhir informed us; Abū Saʿd al-Kanjardhī informed us; Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim informed us; Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī related to us; ʿAlī—meaning Ibn al-Jaʿd—narrated to us; Ibn Abī Dhīb, from Shuraḥbīl—i.e., Ibn Saʿd—who said:
I was with Zayd ibn Thābit at al-Aswāf (2). I caught hold of a bird, whereupon Zayd went indoors. They pushed it into my hands and ran off. Zayd then took the bird, set it free, struck me on the nape of my neck, and said,
‘May you lose your mother! Do you not know that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared the land between its two lava fields inviolable?’ (3)
(1) The rest of the verse reads: “among the believers and those who strive in the path of Allah.” Ibn Umm Maktum had stayed behind the Prophet. He said, “O Messenger of Allah, I am blind,” whereupon the revelation was amended to: “The believers who remain behind—other than those who have a disability—are not equal to those who strive in the way of Allah.” Reported by al-Bukhari, 8/196 and 9/19.
(2) Al-Aswaf—with the letter fa—is the correct reading; the printed edition mistakenly has al-Aswaq. It is a locality on the outskirts of Medina, situated between the two lava fields. In the Muwatta, 3/87, a man relates: “Zayd b. Thabit came in to me while I was at al-Aswaf. I had caught a nahs, a bird resembling a shrike; he took it from my hand and set it free.”
(3) Reported by Ahmad, 5/181, 192; al-Tabarani, no. 4910; and al-Bayhaqi, 5/199. The narrator Shurahbil b. Saad is deemed weak; the author of al-Mizan cites Ibn Maʿin, Malik, Abu Zurʿa, al-Darqutni, al-Nasaʾi, and Ibn ʿAdi to this effect. Ibn Saʿd adds that Shurahbil lived on until his memory failed and he became needy, so his narrations are not relied upon. Nevertheless, the hadith is strengthened by what Malik (2/889), al-Bukhari (4/77), and Muslim (no. 1372) transmit from Abu Hurayra—“What lies between its two lava fields is sacred”—as well as by Muslim (no. 1363) from Saʿd: “I declare sacred what lies between the two lava fields of Medina: no tree is to be cut and no game is to be hunted there.” The term laba refers to the harra, a tract of black volcanic rock; Medina is flanked by two such lava fields, one to the east and one to the west. The phrase therefore means the two lava fields and the area between them. For the legal status of Medina’s sanctuary and the scholarly debate on the matter, see Sharh al-Nasaʾi, 7/307, 313.