ibn Jabal, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared, “Whoever’s last words are ‘There is no god but Allah’ will enter Paradise.”(1) With that he breathed his last—may Allah have mercy on him.(2)

This narration was transmitted by Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥākim and others, from Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Warrāq al-Rāzī, from Abū Jaʿfar with this very chain.

Abū ʾl-Ḥusayn ibn al-Munādī and Abū Saʿīd ibn Yūnus said: “Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī died on the last day of the year 264 AH; he had been born in 200 AH.”

Al-Ḥākim, however, states in the biography of the centenarian Abū ʾl-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Mahdī al-Rāzī: “This shaykh is reliable in my estimation, for he said, ‘I saw Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī.’ I asked him, ‘What did he look like?’ He replied, ‘He had a black beard, was slender, and of a brown complexion.’ He then added, ‘Such was Abū Zurʿah’s appearance, and he died at the age of fifty-six.’”

I say: I suspect that Abū ʿAbd Allah [al-Ḥākim] was mistaken about Abū Zurʿah’s age, for Abū Zurʿah himself travelled for knowledge and heard (hadith) from Qabīṣah and Abū Nuʿaym. The apparent conclusion is that he was born in 200 AH—and Allah knows best.

Al-Ḥākim also records in his book The Comprehensive Register of the Imams of the Ages Who Vindicated the Reporters of Traditions: “I heard ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsā say, ‘I heard Aḥmad ibn…’”