He offered the funeral prayer for the martyrs of Uhud just as one prays over the deceased, then he turned to the pulpit and said:
“I will precede you to the Hawd, and I will testify on your behalf. By Allah, I can see my Basin at this very moment. I have been given the keys to the treasure-houses of the earth—or the keys of the earth itself. By Allah, I do not fear that you will fall into shirk after me; what I fear is that you will compete with one another for it.”
In another narration he said, “Rather, I fear for you the world: that you will vie for it and fight one another, and so be destroyed as those before you were destroyed.” ʿUqbah added, “That was the last time I saw the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, on the pulpit.”
(1) Copy T reads: “salat al-mayyit” (the funeral prayer).
(2) Copies A and T read: “tanafasu fiha” (compete for it) with a single initial t; all these variants are attested in the two Sahihs.
(3) The hadith is transmitted by al-Bukhari, Muslim, Ahmad in the Musnad, and al-Tirmidhi in his Sunan. See: Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, Book of Funerals, chapter “The Prayer over a Martyr,” no. 1343 (3:209), and the other loci in al-Bukhari (nos. 3596, 4042, 6426, 6590). See also Muslim, Book of Virtues, chapter “Affirming the Basin (hawd) of our Prophet, peace be upon him, and its Characteristics,” no. 2296 (4:1795); Musnad Ahmad 4:149; and Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Book on the Description of the Resurrection, chap. 28, no. 2462 (4:640), where al-Tirmidhi remarks, “This hadith is hasan sahih.”
(4) Copies C and D read: “wa-lakin” (“but”).
(5) The printed edition reads: “akhsha ʿalaykum an tanafasu …” (“I fear for you that you will compete …”), omitting the word al-dunya (“worldly life”).
(6) The phrase “fa-tahlaku” (“and perish”) is absent from copy T.
(7) This additional material—namely the final recension and ʿUqbah’s remark—is cited by Muslim through a different chain under the same hadith number, 2296 (4:1796). Al-Bukhari also records ʿUqbah’s words in the form: “It was the last glance I ever cast at the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him,” in Fath al-Bari, Book of the Campaigns, chapter “The Expedition of Uhud” (7:348–49), no. 4042.