He said to me, “Carry my belongings for me while I go to my people and give them the glad tidings.” I busied myself for a short while, and when I set out to follow him I could not overtake him, nor did I know where he had gone. Whenever I asked about him, people would reply, “He is ahead of you,” until I met a party of Arabs from the tribe of Kalb. I questioned them; when they heard my accent one of them made his camel kneel, seated me behind him, and they carried me to their land. There they sold me, and a woman from the Anṣār bought me and set me to work in her orchard. It was during that time that the Messenger of God ﷺ arrived in Madinah.
Salman then related how he brought the Prophet charity and a gift in order to verify what his former companion had foretold, and how he sought a glimpse of the Seal of Prophethood. The moment he saw it he believed on the spot and told the Messenger of God everything that had happened to him.
He said: The Messenger of God ﷺ ordered Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq to purchase me from my mistress, and he set me free.
Salman added: One day I asked him about the religion of the Christians, and he replied, “There is no good in them.” That weighed heavily on my heart because of the men with whom I had lived and the righteous person who had been with me in Jerusalem, and I was greatly troubled—until God revealed to His Messenger ﷺ:
“You will surely find that the most hostile of people to the believers are the Jews and those who ascribe partners to God; and you will surely find that the nearest of them in affection to the believers are those who say, ‘We are Christians.’ That is because among them are priests and monks and because they are not arrogant.” (Qur’an 5:82)
The Messenger of God ﷺ summoned me. I came to him fearful and sat before him, and he recited, “In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Compassionate: ‘That is because among them are priests and monks and because they are not arrogant…’ ” [al-Mā’idah 5:82] and the following verses. Then he said, “O Salman, those people with whom you stayed, and your companion, were not Christians; they were Muslims.”
I replied, “O Messenger of God, by Him who sent you with the truth, it was he who commanded me to follow you. I even asked him, ‘What if he orders me to leave your religion and what you practise?’ He answered, ‘Yes—leave it, for truth and God’s pleasure lie in whatever he commands you.’ ”
This account contains many peculiarities and differs somewhat from the version transmitted by Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq. Ibn Isḥāq’s chain of transmission is stronger, his narrative more coherent, and it is closer to what al-Bukhārī recorded in his Ṣaḥīḥ on the authority of Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān al-Taymī, from his father, from Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī, from Salmān al-Fārisī—that he passed through more than ten masters, from one lord to another, that is, from one teacher and mentor to the next. God knows best.
Al-Suhaylī said: thirty masters passed him on, from one master to another. God knows best.
Similarly, al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Nuʿaym gave a full account of his conversion in Dalā’il, citing numerous chains and wordings; in some of them it is stated that the name of the mistress who concluded his manumission contract was Khulayṣa. God knows best.