Imām Aḥmad (1) said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith— a Makkan of the Banū Makhzūm—narrated to us; he was told by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Insān—whom he commended highly—on the authority of his father, from ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr [from his own father], who said:

“We were returning with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ from Liyyah. When we reached the lote-tree, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ halted at the edge of al-Qarn al-Aswad, facing it, and fixed his gaze on Nakhīb—meaning a valley. He waited there until everyone had gathered. Then he declared:

‘Indeed, the game of Wajj and the cutting of its trees are inviolable, made sacred by Allah.’

This took place before his arrival at Ṭāʾif and his siege of Thaqīf.

Abū Dāwūd (2) also transmitted the report through Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Insān al-Ṭāʾifī. Ibn Ḥibbān listed him among the trustworthy in his book al-Thiqat (3). Ibn Maʿīn (4) said, “There is nothing wrong with him.” Some critics nevertheless took issue with the report; Aḥmad, al-Bukhārī, and others judged it weak (5), whereas al-Shāfiʿī declared it sound and acted upon it. Allah knows best.

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The Death of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy—may Allah disgrace him

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (6) said: al-Zuhrī told me, from ʿUrwah, from Usāmah ibn Zayd (may Allah be pleased with him), who recounted:

“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ visited ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy during the illness in which he died. When the Prophet perceived that death had overtaken him, he said,

‘By Allah, did I not forbid you to cherish the Jews?’

He replied, ‘Asʿad ibn Zurārah hated them—so what then?’

Al-Wāqidī (7) relates that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy fell ill in the closing nights of Shawwāl and died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah; his illness lasted twenty nights, during which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ visited him. On the day he died, the Prophet entered while he was in the throes of death and said,

‘I forbade you to love the Jews.’

He answered, ‘Asʿad ibn Zurārah hated them, yet what good did it do him?’ Then he said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, this is no time for reproach; this is death. If I die, attend my washing, give me the shirt that has been next to your skin so that I may be shrouded in it, perform the funeral prayer over me, and seek forgiveness for me.’ The Messenger of Allah ﷺ fulfilled all of that for him. And it was also narrated