Thābit al-Bunānī, whenever he caught sight of Anas ibn Mālik, would grasp his hand, kiss it, and remark, “A hand that once touched the hand of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.”

Since that privilege has passed us by, we now say instead: “Here is a revered Stone—held to be the right hand of Allah on earth—upon which the lips of our Prophet rested when he kissed it.”

So if you were unable to perform the pilgrimage but meet the returning caravan, embrace a pilgrim, kiss his mouth, and say, “A mouth that has kissed the Stone my beloved, peace be upon him, once kissed.”

Ibn Sīrīn recounted that ʿAlī said, “People of Kūfah, can you not be like the Salmanī and the Hamdānī?”—meaning al-Ḥārith ibn al-Azmaʿ, not the one known as al-Aʿwar—“for the two of them make up the halves of a single man.”

Hammād ibn Zayd added, “ʿUbaydah was blind in one eye.”

Ibn Sīrīn also said, “Among the companions of ʿAbd Allāh (Ibn Masʿūd) some preferred ʿUbaydah, others preferred ʿAlqamah, yet all agreed that Shurayḥ came after the two of them.” (1)

Al-Thawrī narrated from al-Nuʿmān ibn Qays who said: “When death approached ʿUbaydah he called for his books, erased them, and said, ‘I fear you may place them where they do not belong.’” (2)

ʿĀṣim related from Ibn Sīrīn: “A group came to ʿUbaydah asking him to reconcile a dispute among them. He replied, ‘I will not speak unless you appoint me as your authority.’”

ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ziyād reported: al-Nuʿmān ibn Qays told us, my father told me: “I said to ʿUbaydah, ‘I have heard that you will die and then return before the Day of Resurrection carrying a banner under which a victory will be granted to you.’ (3) He answered, ‘If Allah makes me live twice and die twice before the Day of Resurrection, then He has willed no good for me.’”