“Who could that be?!”

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said, “Messenger of Allah, shall we not kill him?”

He answered, “No. Leave him, for he will have followers who will delve deeply into the religion, then come out of it just as an arrow shoots through its quarry: one examines the arrowhead and finds nothing on it, then the shaft and finds nothing, then the nock and finds nothing—so swiftly has it outstripped the entrails and the blood.”

al-Layth ibn Saʿd narrated from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, from Abū’z-Zubayr, from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who said:

A man met the Prophet ﷺ at al-Jiʿrānah when he was returning from Ḥunayn. In Bilāl’s cloak lay some silver, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was taking from it and distributing it among the people. The man said, “Muḥammad, be just!”

He replied, “Woe to you! Who will be just if I am not? Ruined and lost I would be were I not just!”

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said, “Messenger of Allah, let me strike the neck of this hypocrite.”

He answered, “I seek refuge in Allah lest people say that Muḥammad kills his Companions. This man and his fellows recite the Qur’an, yet it does not go past their throats; they will dart out of it as an arrow darts through its quarry.” Muslim (1) transmits it through Muḥammad ibn Rumḥ from al-Layth.

Aḥmad (2) reports: Abū ʿĀmir related to us; Qurrāh from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, from Jābir, who said:

While the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was dividing the spoils of Ḥunayn, a man stood up and said, “Be just.” He replied, “Wretched you will be if I am not just.” al-Bukhārī (3) also records it through Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm from Qurrāh ibn Khālid as-Sadūsī with the same wording.

In the two Ṣaḥīḥs (4), through az-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Saʿīd, it is related:

We were with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was distributing a share of spoils when Dhū al-Khuwaishirah, a man of Banū Tamīm, came and said, “Messenger of Allah, be just.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied, “Woe to you! Who will be just if I am not? Ruined and lost I am if I am not just.”

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said, “Messenger of Allah, allow me to strike off his head.”

He said, “Leave him. He will have followers such that one of you will regard his own prayer insignificant compared with theirs, and his fasting insignificant compared with theirs. They recite the Qur’an, yet it does not pass beyond their collarbones. They will shoot out of Islam as an arrow shoots through its quarry: one looks at the arrowhead and finds nothing, then at the binding and finds nothing, then at its shaft—that is, the middle section—and finds nothing, then at its feathers and finds nothing; it has outpaced the entrails and the blood. Their distinguishing sign is a black man whose upper arm is like a woman’s breast, or like a dangling piece of flesh. They will emerge when people are divided.”

Abū Saʿīd continued: “I bear witness that I heard this from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and I bear witness that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib fought them while I was with him. He ordered that man to be sought; he was found and brought, and I saw him exactly as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had described.”

Muslim (5) also relates this through al-Qāsim ibn al-Faḍl, from Abū Naḍrah, from Abū Saʿīd in a similar wording.