“Idolatry is far worse.”
He then said, “O Sawad, tell me the story I have long wished to hear from you.”
Sawad replied, “Certainly. While I was out at night with some of my camels in al-Sharāh, I fell asleep. I had a familiar spirit who came to me, struck me with his foot, and said, ‘Rise, O Sawad ibn Qārib! A Prophet has now appeared in Tihāmah, calling to the truth and to a straight path.’”
He related the event as already mentioned, adding at the end of his poem:
Be my intercessor on the Day when no kinsman—
save you—will avail Sawad ibn Qārib.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Return to your people and recite these verses among them.”
The ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir also reported the account through Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from al-Ḥakam ibn Yaʿlā ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Maḥāribī, from ʿAbbād ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, who said: “Sawad ibn Qārib al-Azdi told me, ‘I was asleep on one of the mountains of al-Sharāh when someone came and struck me with his foot,’” and he narrated the same story.
Ibn ʿAsākir likewise transmitted it through Muḥammad ibn al-Barāʾ, from Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, from Abū Isḥāq, from al-Barāʾ, who said: “Sawad ibn Qārib told us, ‘I was residing in India when my familiar spirit came to me one night,’” and he recounted the event.
After he recited the final lines of poetry, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ laughed until his molars were visible and said, “You have prospered, O Sawad!”
Abū Nuʿaym, in his work Proofs of Prophethood, said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥasan narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn Ḥarb narrated to us; Abū al-Munḏir Hishām ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Sāʾib narrated to us, from his father, from ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿUmānī, who said:
“There was among us a man named Māzin ibn al-Ghaḍūbah who served an idol in a village called Samāyā in ʿUmān. The idol was venerated by Banū al-Ṣāmit, Banū Khiṭāmah, and the people of Mahrah—Māzin’s maternal uncles. His mother was Zaynab bint—
(1) In manuscripts h and t: as-sarāh written with an undotted sīn.
(2) In manuscript t: “wa-kāna lī najī min al-jinn atānī” (“And I had a confidant from the jinn who came to me”).
(3) Mukhtaṣar Ibn Manẓūr on Tārīkh Ibn ʿAsākir (vol. 10, p. 211).
(4) I was unable to locate the narration in Tārīkh Ibn ʿAsākir, as the volumes containing the entry on Suwād were not available.
(5) This report appears in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah (vol. 1, pp. 142–145) and is transmitted by al-Bayhaqī in his Dalāʾil (vol. 2, p. 258) from ʿAlī b. Ḥarb. It is also mentioned by Ibn Ḥajar in al-Iṣābah (entry on Māzin b. al-Ghaḍūbah), by al-Haythamī in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (vol. 8, p. 247), and by al-Suyūṭī in al-Khaṣāʾiṣ (p. 103). From the beginning of this account to the section marked “ḥ 17” in the main text, it appears earlier in t and later in h, as indicated by the page numbers of h in the margin.
(6) In h and t: ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar. The one confirmed in Dalāʾil Abī Nuʿaym is either ʿAbd Allāh b. Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. Fāris or ʿAbd Allāh b. Jaʿfar al-Jābirī, both of whom are narrated by Abū Nuʿaym. See Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (vol. 15, p. 553; vol. 16, p. 133).
(7) In Dalāʾil Abī Nuʿaym: al-Muʿāfā.
(8) In h: al-maʿṣūbah, without dotted letters; in t: al-ʿuḍūb, with an undotted ʿayn; in Dalāʾil Abī Nuʿaym: al-ghuḍūb. This reading is also confirmed in the other aforementioned sources and in Tajrīd al-Dhahabī (vol. 2, p. 40). In Taj al-ʿArūs (under “ghadab”), ghudūbah denotes an Arab tribal division. The form yastadan appears as sādān, which refers to the caretaker of the Kaʿbah and the house of idols; see al-Lisān (under “sadan”).
(9) In h and t: Ḥaṭāmah, with an undotted ḥāʾ, as confirmed by Dalāʾil Abī Nuʿaym, Jamharat Ibn Durayd (vol. 2, p. 232), and al-Ishtiqāq (pp. 274, 446). The vocalization is given in al-Libāb (vol. 1, p. 452), and the spelling with a dotted khāʾ is found in al-Jamhara and al-Ishtiqāq, following the Qalam orthography.
(10) As in t and in Dalāʾil Abī Nuʿaym: “akhawān Māzin li-ummihi” (“the maternal half-brothers of Māzin”).