Jarīr ibn Ḥāzim reported—al-Ḥasan narrated to us:
A man said to ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, “Suppose there is a man whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ loved when he passed away—would that not make him a righteous man?”
He answered, “Indeed.”
The man continued, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ died loving you, and he appointed you to office.”
ʿAmr replied, “Yes, but by Allah I do not know whether that was real affection for me or whether he was merely making use of my abilities. Yet I will tell you of two men for whom he died loving them: Ibn Masʿūd and ʿAmmār.” The man retorted, “That is the one you killed at Ṣiffīn.” ʿAmr said, “By Allah, so we did.” (1)
Muʿtamir reported—ʿAwf narrated to us—from an elder of Bakr ibn Wāʾil:
The Prophet ﷺ brought out a strip of black cloak, tied it to a spear, then shook it as a banner and said, “Who will take it and fulfill its right?”
Because of the stipulated condition, the Muslims shrank from it.
A man stood up and asked, “Messenger of Allah, what is its right?”
He replied, “That you do not fight a Muslim with it, nor flee from a disbeliever.”
So the man accepted it, and he raised that banner against us on the day of Ṣiffīn. I have never seen a banner that broke and crushed men’s backs more than it did—and that man was ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ. (2)
Umayyah ibn Bisṭām heard this account from him. (3)
(334) Al-Bayhaqi, 1/225, reports it through the isnad: Wahb b. Jarir – from his father – from Yahya b. Ayyub – from Yazid b. Abi Habib – from Imran b. Abi Anas – from Abd al-Rahman b. Jubayr – from Amr b. al-As, who said: “During the expedition of Dhat al-Salasil I had a nocturnal emission on a cold night. Fearing that a full ritual bath might endanger my life, I performed tayammum (dry ablution) and led my companions in the dawn prayer. When this was mentioned to the Prophet ﷺ, he said, ‘Amr, did you lead the prayer while you were in a state of major impurity?’ I explained my reason and cited the verse, ‘Do not kill yourselves; Allah is ever merciful to you’ (Q 4:29). The Messenger of Allah ﷺ laughed and made no further comment.
Al-Bukhari cites the report in suspended form in his Sahih, 1/385; Ibn Hajar judged its chain sound; al-Hakim declared it sahih, 1/177, and al-Dhahabi agreed; al-Munadhiri graded it hasan. See also Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Maad, 3/388.
(1) Musnad Ahmad, 4/203, through the chain al-Aswad b. Amir – Jarir b. Hazim; all its transmitters are reliable.
(2) Ibn al-Athir explains that a khamisah is a cloak of silk or wool with woven markings; some limit the term to a black, ornamented cloak. It was a common garment in earlier times; plural: khamais.
(3) Ibn Asakir, Tarikh Dimashq, 13/256/A.