Ibn al-Sammak said, “I saw Misʿar while asleep, so I asked him, ‘Which deed have you found most beneficial?’
He replied, ‘The remembrance of Allah.’
Qabīṣah said, “Misʿar would have preferred to have a tooth pulled out than to be asked about a hadith.”
It is related from Zayd ibn al-Hubāb and others that Misʿar said, “Faith is statement and action.”
Al-Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān narrated—from Abū Makhzūm, who reported it from Misʿar ibn Kidām—that he said, “To deny qadar (Divine predestination) is the ABC (1) of heresy.”
I read to Isḥāq ibn Ṭāriq; he informed me that Yūsuf ibn Khalīl told him; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Taymī told us; Abū ʿAlī the Qurʾān-reciter told us; Abū Nuʿaym told us:
Misʿar transmitted from a group whose names were all Muḥammad: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the freedman of the family of Ṭalḥah; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā; Muḥammad ibn Muslim al-Zuhrī; Muḥammad ibn Sūqah; Muḥammad ibn Juhādah; Muḥammad ibn Zayd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar; Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir; Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Thaqafī; Muḥammad ibn Qays ibn Makhramah; Muḥammad ibn Khālid al-Ḍabbī; Muḥammad ibn Jābir al-Yamāmī; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Zubayrī; and Muḥammad ibn al-Azhar.
With this same chain Abū Nuʿaym said: The judge Abū Aḥmad narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Shabīb narrated to us; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAmr al-Bajalī narrated to us; Misʿar narrated to us, from ʿĀṣim, from Zir, from Ibn Masʿūd, who said:
“It is written in the Torah: ‘Whoever recites Sūrah al-Mulk each night has done much and done well. It is the protector: it protects from the punishment of the grave. When that punishment approaches from the direction of his head, his head will say, “Keep away from me, for he used to recite me, and within me is Sūrah al-Mulk.” When it comes from the direction of his stomach, his stomach will say, “Keep away from me, for he retained within me…’”