He said, “They seized me, beat me, and wrote down our names. ‘What is your name?’ they asked.
‘I am Khaythamah,’ I answered.
‘Write down: Donkey son of Donkey,’ they ordered.

When the beating was over I grew faint and fell asleep, and it was as though I were looking at Paradise, with a company of ḥūr al-ʿayn (heavenly maidens) standing at its gate. One of them said, ‘O wretch, what has slipped away from you?’ Another asked, ‘What has he missed?’ She replied, ‘Had he been killed he would now be in Paradise among the houris.’ The other responded, ‘For Allah to grant him martyrdom while Islam is exalted and idolatry is abased is better for him.’

Then I awoke, and it was as though someone were saying to me, ‘Recite al-Barāʾah,’ so I recited until, ‘So travel freely through the land for four months’ (Qur’an 9:2). I therefore counted four months from the night of that vision, and Allah released me from captivity (1).

Ibn Abī Kāmil said: I heard Khaythamah say, ‘In Damascus I narrated the ḥadith of al-Thawrī, from Ṭalḥah ibn ʿAmr, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Seek goodness among those with pleasant faces (2).”’

Judge Zakariyyā al-Balkhī rejected this ḥadith and dispatched a courier to Kūfah to ask Ibn ʿUqdah about it. He wrote back, ‘Sarī ibn Yaḥyā did indeed relate it on such-and-such a date.’ Al-Balkhī then asked me for the original transcript and found that its date matched.

Al-Balkhī sought my pardon, but I did not absolve him (3).

I say: This ḥadith was transmitted by Sarī ibn Yaḥyā—Qabīṣah related it to us, Sufyān related it to us—and it would have been proper for Khaythamah to reconcile with al-Balkhī, for the latter had been diligent in verifying the ḥadith through its chain. Once he was confident of Khaythamah’s reliability, he cleared himself of the matter.