I asked my father, “Where was the Prophet ﷺ at the time?”
He replied, “On the Tabūk expedition in greater Syria, whereas Muʿāwiyah died in Madinah. His bier was raised so that the Prophet could see it and perform the funeral prayer over him. This report, too, is objectionable in this form.”

The Arrival of Caesar’s Envoy to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ at Tabūk

Imām Aḥmad (1) narrated: Isḥāq ibn ʿĪsā related to us; Yaḥyā ibn Sulaym related; from ʿAbd-Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Khuthaym; from Saʿīd ibn Abī Rāshid, who said:

I met the Tanūkhī—the envoy whom Heraclius sent to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—at Ḥimṣ. He was my neighbor, an old man who had reached extreme senility, or nearly so.

I asked him, “Will you not inform me about Heraclius’s letter to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and the Messenger of Allah’s letter to Heraclius?”

He replied, “Indeed. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ arrived at Tabūk, he dispatched Dihyah al-Kalbī to Heraclius. When Heraclius received the Prophet’s letter, he summoned the Roman bishops and patriarchs and shut the doors upon himself and them.

He said, ‘This man has encamped where you see, and he has sent me, inviting me to three things: that I follow him in his religion; or that we pay him our wealth while remaining on our own land—even though the land is ours; or that we wage war against him. By Allah, you know from what you read in the Scriptures that he will indeed seize whatever lies beneath my very feet. Come, then—let us follow him in his religion, or let us hand over to him our wealth while staying on our land.’ They grunted as one man until their cloaks slipped from their shoulders and said,

‘Are you calling us to abandon Christianity or to become the slaves of a Bedouin Arab who has come from the Ḥijāz?’ When he sensed that, were they to leave his presence, they would incite the Romans against him, he appeased them—though grudgingly—and said, ‘I only said that to test the firmness of your commitment.’

He then summoned a man from the Arab tribe of Tujīb who had authority over the Christian Arabs and said, ‘Find me a man with a good memory for speech, fluent in Arabic, so that I may send him to this man with my reply.’ He brought me forward, and Heraclius handed me a letter, saying,

‘Take my letter to this man. Whatever you hear of his words, memorize for me three things: see whether he mentions the document he sent me; when he reads my letter, note whether he refers to the night; and as for his appearance, observe whether anything about it troubles you.’

I set out with his letter until I came to Tabūk. I found the Prophet sitting among his Companions, his knees drawn up, beside the water.

I asked, ‘Where is your leader?’ They said, ‘There he is.’ I approached, sat before him, and handed him the letter.

He placed it in his lap and asked,
‘From which people are you?’

I replied, ‘I am a brother of Tanūkh.’

He said, ‘Would you like to enter Islam—the upright religion, the creed of your forefather Abraham?’

I answered, ‘I am the envoy of a people and upon the religion of a people; I shall not leave it until I return to them.’

He laughed and recited: “Indeed, you do not guide whom you love, but Allah guides whom He wills, and He knows best those who are rightly guided” (al-Qaṣaṣ 28:56).

‘O brother of Tanūkh! I wrote to Kisrā, and he tore up my letter; by Allah, Allah will tear him up and tear up his kingdom. I wrote on parchment to the Negus, and he perforated it; by Allah, Allah will perforate him and perforate his kingdom. And your master received the parchment I sent him and has kept it; so long as life remains, people will continue to feel his power.’

I said: