al-Akhdar, from Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir, from Jābir, who said:
When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed away, Abū Bakr lifted the cloth from his face, kissed him, and then declared, “By Allah, besides Whom there is no deity, you have died a death after which you will never die again!” (1)
18 – Sahl ibn ʿAmmār, Abū Yaḥyā al-Naysābūrī
The judge, erudite scholar, Abū Yaḥyā al-ʿAtakī, a Naysābūrī Ḥanafī; the foremost teacher of the scholars of opinion in Khurasan and the judge of Herat.
He travelled extensively in pursuit of hadith.
He heard from: Yazīd ibn Hārūn, Shabābah ibn Sawwār, Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Qays, al-Wāqidī, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā, and several others.
Among those who transmitted from him are: al-ʿAbbās ibn Ḥamzah, Abū Yaḥyā al-Bazzāz, Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Sufyān the jurist, Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān ibn Fāris, and Aḥmad ibn Shuʿayb the jurist.
(1) Its chain of transmission is weak because of the unreliability of Salih ibn Abi al-Akhdar. Nonetheless, the report is firmly established from Aisha: al-Bukhari, 3/91 (Funerals, chapter: Visiting the deceased after death), records it through two chains from al-Zuhri via Abu Salama, who said that Aisha related: “Abu Bakr rode his horse from his residence at al-Sunh, dismounted, entered the mosque without addressing anyone, then went in to Aisha. He approached the Prophet, who was covered with a striped mantle, uncovered his face, leaned over him and kissed him. He then wept and said, ‘May my father and mother be your ransom, O Prophet of God; Allah will not cause you to die twice. As for the death that was decreed for you, you have already experienced it…’”
It is also narrated by al-Nasa’i, 4/11 (Funerals, chapter: Kissing the deceased), and by al-Bayhaqi, 3/406.
Al-Tirmidhi, after hadith no. 989 which he transmits from Aisha about the Prophet kissing the dead body of Uthman ibn Mazun, adds: “There are corroborating reports from Ibn Abbas, Jabir and Aisha stating that Abu Bakr kissed the Prophet after his death.” A related account from Abu Hurayra appears in Ibn Hibban, no. 2155.
(*) See Mizanu l-I‘tidal, 2/240, and Lisanu l-Mizan, 3/121.