“May Allah never forgive you.”

He rose, wiping away his tears with the two mantles he was wearing, and no more than seven days passed before he died. They buried him, but the earth expelled his body. So they went to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and informed him of what had happened. He said,

“The earth has accepted people worse than your companion, but Allah wished to admonish you concerning the sanctity that exists among you.”

They then placed him between two rocky crags of a mountain and heaped stones over him.

Thereafter the verse was revealed: “O you who believe, when you go forth in the path of Allah, verify…” (Qur’an 4:94).

Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah narrated the incident from al-Zuhrī, and Shuʿayb transmitted it from al-Zuhrī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mūhib, from Qabīṣah ibn Dhuʾayb in a similar wording, though without naming Mukhallim ibn Juthāmah or ʿĀmir ibn al-Aḍbaṭ. Al-Bayhaqī likewise reported it (1) from al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in a comparable account, commenting: “It was about this that Allah revealed the verse, ‘O you who believe, when you go forth in the way of Allah, verify…’”

I say: We have already discussed the reason for the revelation of this verse and its meaning in the Tafsīr (2) in sufficient detail—praise and bounty belong to Allah.

The Expedition of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hudhāfah al-Sahmī

It is authentically recorded in the two Ṣaḥīḥs (3) through al-Aʿmash, from Saʿd ibn ʿUbaydah, from Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, who said:

The Prophet ﷺ placed a man from the Anṣār in command of a detachment, dispatched them, and ordered them to listen to him and obey him.

He (the reporter) said: They angered him over something, so he said, “Gather firewood for me.” They gathered it.

He then said, “Light a fire.” They lit one.

He asked, “Did not the Messenger of Allah ﷺ command you to listen to me and obey me?”

They replied, “Yes, indeed.”

He said, “Then enter it.”

The narrator said: They looked at one another and said, “We only fled to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ from the Fire.”

His anger subsided and the fire went out. When they returned to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ they related the matter to him, and he said,

“Had they entered it, they would never have come out. Obedience is only in what is right.”

This story is also authentically reported in the two Ṣaḥīḥs (4) through Yaʿlā ibn Muslim, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās.

We have treated this verse adequately in the Tafsīr (5); all praise and grace belong to Allah.