Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb related to us; Hilāl ibn al-ʿAlāʾ al-Raqqī told us; my father al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Hilāl transmitted to us from his own father, from Abū Ghālib, from Abū Umāmah, who said:
A delegation from the Negus came to the Messenger of God—may God bless him and grant him peace. He rose and personally served them. His Companions said, “We will take care of them, O Messenger of God.” He replied, “They honored my Companions, and I wish to repay them in kind.”
He (the author) also said: Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf al-Iṣfahānī informed us; Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Aʿrābī related to us; Hilāl ibn al-ʿAlāʾ told us; my father narrated to us; Ṭalḥah ibn Zayd reported from al-Awzāʿī, from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Qatadah, who said:
A delegation from the Negus came to the Messenger of God—peace and blessings be upon him. The Messenger of God stood up to serve them. His Companions said, “We will attend to them, O Messenger of God.” He answered, “They used to honor our Companions, and I love to requite them.” This tradition is reported solely by Ṭalḥah ibn Zayd from al-Awzāʿī.
Al-Bayhaqī said: Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Bishrān narrated to us; Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Sammāk narrated to us; Ḥanbal ibn Isḥāq narrated to us; al-Ḥumaydī narrated to us; Sufyān narrated to us, from ʿAmr, who said:
When ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ returned from Abyssinia he remained in his house and would not go out. People asked, “What is the matter with him—why does he not appear?” ʿAmr replied, “Aṣḥamah (the Negus) claims that your companion is a prophet.”
Ibn Isḥāq said: When ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Rabīʿah came back to Quraysh, having failed to achieve what they wanted against the Messenger of God’s Companions—and the Negus had sent them away in a manner they disliked—and after ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb accepted Islam, he being a man of formidable resolve whom no one dared confront, the Companions of the Messenger of God, together with Ḥamzah, found protection in him until they provoked Quraysh. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd used to say: “We could not pray at the Kaʿbah until ʿUmar embraced Islam. When he did, he fought Quraysh until he prayed at the Kaʿbah, and we prayed with him.”
I say: It is authentically established in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī that Ibn Masʿūd said, “We have been in a state of honor since ʿUmar accepted Islam.”