Al-Bayhaqī (1) said, “If this report is authentic, it is because he refused to repent of his slander and persisted in it.”

I say: It is as though he were declaring, “I did not slander al-Mughīrah; I merely gave testimony.” Thus he inclined to draw a distinction between the accuser and the witness, for had the requisite quorum been completed by a fourth witness, the punishment of stoning would have become obligatory and they would not have been called slanderers.

Abū Kaʿb, the dealer in silk, (2) related: ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Bakrah told us that his father had married a woman who later died. Her brothers barred him from leading her funeral prayer, whereupon he said, “I have a greater right to pray over her.” They replied, “The Companion of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ has spoken the truth.”

He then entered the grave, but they shoved him roughly, and he lost consciousness. He was carried home while twenty of his sons and daughters—of whom I am the youngest—wailed over him. When he came to, he said, “Do not wail. By Allah, no soul whose departure is dearer to me than my own has ever gone forth.”

The people were alarmed and asked, “Why, Father?”

He answered, “I fear that I may live to see a time when I will be unable to enjoin what is right or forbid what is wrong; what good would there be in life on that day?” (3)

This narration is taken from al-Ṭabarānī’s Muʿjam.

Ibn Mahdī said: Abū Khushaynah related to us from his uncle, al-Ḥakam ibn al-Aʿraj: A man brought a load of timber. Ziyād wanted it, but the man refused to sell, so Ziyād seized it by force and used it to build the shelter attached to the mosque of Basra. He added, “Abū Bakrah did not pray in that structure until it was pulled down.” (4)

Ibn Isḥāq transmitted from al-Zuhrī, from Saʿīd, that ʿUmar flogged Abū Bakrah and Nāfiʿ