on a journey when a man went into a thicket and took a red-bird’s egg. The mother bird fluttered above the head of the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions, whereupon he asked, “Which of you has distressed this bird?” A man said, “I took its egg.” He replied, “Give it back—give it back, out of mercy for her.” (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān did not hear this directly from his father.)

Aḥmad ibn Ḥāzim ibn Abī Ghurzah al-Ghifārī said: ʿAlī ibn Qādim narrated to us: Abū al-ʿAlāʾ Khālid ibn Ṭahmān related, from ʿAṭiyyah, from Abū Saʿīd, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed by a gazelle that had been tied to a tent. She said, “Messenger of Allah, release me so that I may go and suckle my fawn; I will then return and you may tie me again.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “It is the game of some people and the property of others.” He made her swear, and she pledged to do so. He untied her, and before long she returned with her udder emptied. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ tied her once more, then asked her owners to give her to him, and they did. He set her free and said, “If animals knew about death what you know, you would never eat a fat one of them.”

ʿAlī and Abū al-ʿAlāʾ are both reliable; ʿAṭiyyah, however, is weak. A similar narration is reported from Zayd ibn Arqam.

Al-Qāsim ibn al-Faḍl al-Ḥaddānī transmitted from Abū Naḍrah, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, that while a shepherd was pasturing his flock on the volcanic plain (al-Ḥarra), a wolf came at a sheep. The shepherd placed himself between the wolf and the ewe. The wolf sat back on its tail and said, “Will you not fear Allah? You bar me from provision that Allah has brought to me!” The shepherd exclaimed, “How astonishing—a wolf sitting on its tail, speaking with human speech!” The wolf replied, “Shall I tell you of something even more astonishing? The Messenger of Allah ﷺ is between the two volcanic plains, informing the people of events that have already passed.” The shepherd drove his sheep to Medina, penned them in a corner, then went in to the Prophet ﷺ and told him what the wolf had said. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ came out to the people and said—