And it was Khubayb who established the precedent that any Muslim who is put to death while in captivity (1) should first perform a prayer. The Prophet ﷺ informed his Companions of their fate on the very day they were killed.
When the Quraysh learned that ʿĀṣim ibn Thābit had been slain, they dispatched men to fetch some recognizable part of his body, for he had killed one of their chiefs. Allah, however, sent over ʿĀṣim a cloud-like swarm of bees that shielded his corpse from their emissaries, and they were unable to remove anything from him. Narrated by al-Bukhari.
al-Hadāt is the name of a locality; aẓ-ẓullah means “a cloud,” and ad-dabar refers to “bees.” Concerning the phrase “uq’tulhum budadan,” the word budadan may be read with either a kasrah or a fatḥah on the bāʾ. Those who read it with a kasrah say it is the plural of biddah, meaning “a share,” so the sense is “kill them in allotted portions,” each receiving his share. Those who read it with a fatḥah understand it to mean “dispersed,” that is, “kill them one by one,” from the root tabdīd (to scatter).
Many other sound hadiths on this topic have already appeared in their respective places in this book—among them the report of the boy who used to visit the monk and the sorcerer (2); the hadith of Jurayj (3); the hadith of the three men in the cave upon whom the boulder closed (4); the hadith of the man who heard a voice in the clouds saying, “Water the garden of so-and-so” (5); and others besides. The evidences in this regard are numerous and well-known, and success lies with Allah.
- Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: I never heard ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) speak about anything and say, “I think it is such-and-such,” except that it turned out exactly as he thought. Narrated by al-Bukhari.