meet Rukānah, for Rukānah died at the beginning of Muʿāwiyah’s caliphate, in the year 42 AH. He was one of those who embraced Islam at the Conquest of Mecca, and his wrestling match with the Prophet ﷺ is well known to the scholars; what they reject is the report that the Prophet ﷺ wrestled with Abū Jahl, as has already been noted (1).

Abū Dāwūd also reports in his Sunan (2), on the authority of Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Rukānah, that “Rukānah wrestled with the Prophet ﷺ, and the Prophet ﷺ threw him.”

This version does not mention any stake, whereas a stake is mentioned in the narration of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr from Ibn ʿAbbās and in the narration of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith.

There is no contradiction among these reports. Of those who transmitted the story of the wrestling bout, some recorded that both sides put up a pledge; others omitted any mention of a pledge—without negating it—but merely remained silent and related only part of the event. In the same way, those who reported that Rukānah wagered a sheep did not deny that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ also put up a stake; they were simply silent about it, and that is what ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith reported.

Even had some narrators explicitly denied that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ offered a pledge while the rest affirmed it, the statement of those who affirm would take precedence over the denial, as is the rule in analogous cases.

Once this is established, the episode constitutes evidence for a wager entered into by both parties without a muḥallil (third-party participant). It resembles the wager of the Ṣiddīq, for in each case the bet concerned a matter through which the truth of the religion would be manifested: Rukānah was among the strongest of men, and no one was known ever to have thrown him,