whose beneficence never ends. Help me in my religion by means of this world, and in my Hereafter through god-fearing devotion. Guard me in whatever is out of my sight, and do not leave me to my own devices in what occurs to me. O You whom sins do not harm and whose forgiveness is never diminished, forgive me for that which does not harm You and grant me that which does not diminish You. O Bestower! I ask You for a swift relief, for gracious patience, for well-being from every calamity, and for gratitude for well-being.
The loftiest chain that has come down to us for a hadith of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq is what Imam Abū Muḥammad ibn Qudāmah the judge related to us, together with a group. They said:
ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan narrated to us; Abū Muḥammad al-Jawharī narrated to us; Abū Bakr al-Qaṭīʿī narrated to us; Abū Muslim al-Kajji narrated to us; Abū ʿĀṣim narrated to us, from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad, who said: My father told me:
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said, “I do not know what to do with the Magians.”
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf then stood up and said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: ‘Treat them as you treat the People of the Book.’” ⦗1⦘
(1) Malik records it in al-Muwatta, 1/278 (Book of Zakat, chapter: “The Jizya of the People of the Book and the Magians”). The isnad is broken, though its transmitters are reliable. The author of al-Tanqih adds that the same meaning is also reported with a continuous chain, but that chain contains narrators whose status is unknown.
Ibn Abi Asim narrates: “Ibrahim b. Hajjaj al-Sami told us; Abu Rajaʾ—Hammad b. Salama’s neighbour—told us; al-Aʿmash, from Zayd b. Wahb, said: I was with Umar b. al-Khattab when he asked, ‘Who has information about the Magians?’ ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAwf stood up and said, ‘I testify by Allah that I heard the Messenger of Allah say: The Magians are a branch of the People of the Book; therefore treat them as you treat the People of the Book.’”
Al-Tabarani transmits, through Muslim b. al-ʿAlaʾ al-Hadrami: “Apply to the Magians the same ruling as to the People of the Book, but only in taking the jizya.”
Al-Haythami comments in Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid, 6/13: “Its chain includes narrators I do not know.”
Abu ʿUbayd, in al-Amwal, p. 36, reports with a sound chain from Abu Musa al-Ashʿari: “Had I not seen my companions taking jizya from them—meaning the Magians—I would not have taken it.”
Al-Bukhari 6/184–185, Abu Dawud (3043), al-Tirmidhi (1587), and Abu ʿUbayd in al-Amwal, p. 32, all transmit—through ʿAmr b. Dinar—that he heard Bujala b. ʿAbda say: “Umar b. al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, did not impose jizya on the Magians until ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAwf testified that the Prophet, peace be upon him, had taken it from the Magians of Hajar.”