al-Ashʿath, and was killed on the Night of Dujayl (1) in 82 AH.
ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib said: “I heard ʿAbd Allah ibn Shaddād say,
‘I long to mount the pulpit at daybreak and remain there until noon, recounting the virtues of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—may Allah be pleased with him—then descend and have my neck struck (2).’ ”
I say: This is exaggeration and excess.
Khalid al-Taḥḥān heard this report from ʿAṭāʾ.
The ḥadiths of ʿAbd Allah are recorded in the Six Books, and there is no dispute about his reliability.
111 – Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, Kaʿb ibn Mātiʿ al-Ḥimyarī * (Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī)
He is Kaʿb ibn Mātiʿ al-Ḥimyarī, the Yemeni scholar and rabbi. Formerly a Jew, he embraced Islam after the Prophet’s death ﷺ and came to Medina from Yemen during the caliphate of ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him. He sat with the Companions of Muhammad ﷺ, relating to them from the Israelite scriptures, preserving many marvels (3), and learning the sunnah from the Companions. He was sound in his Islam,
(1) Ibn Saʿd, 5/61. Dijail is the name of a river in Baghdad; for an account of the battle see al-Tabari, 6/382.
(2) Ibn ʿAsakir, 9/205a.
(*) Ibn Saʿd, al-Tabaqat, 7/445; Khalifa, al-Tabaqat, no. 2895; al-Muhabbar, 131; al-Tarikh al-Kabir, 7/223; al-Tarikh al-Saghir, 1/62; al-Maʿarif, 430; al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, 7/161; Jumhurat Ansab al-ʿArab, 434; Ibn ʿAsakir, Tarikh, 14/280a; Usd al-Ghabah, 4/487; Tahdhib al-Asmaʾ wa-l-Lughat, 1/2/68; Tahdhib al-Kamal, no. 1146; Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 1/49; al-ʿIbar, 1/35; Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, 3/170a; al-Isabah, 3/315; Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 8/438; al-Nujum al-Zahira, 1/90; Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, 273; Shadharāt al-Dhahab, 1/40.
(3) After citing several reports on the story of the Queen of Sheba with Solomon, Ibn Kathir states in his Tafsir of Surah al-Naml: “The view closest to the truth in narratives of this kind is that they have been taken from the People of the Book, from what is found in their scriptures—such as the reports of Kaʿb and Wahb. May Allah pardon them for what they transmitted to this community about the Children of Israel, involving curiosities, oddities, and marvels of things that occurred and things that never occurred, and of what was altered and distorted.”