the polytheists and His Messenger, and no idolater shall make pilgrimage to this House after this year.”

He added, “I kept announcing it until my voice turned hoarse.”

This chain of transmission is sound, yet it contains an irregularity in the narrator’s statement, “Whoever had a treaty was granted a respite of four months.” Some scholars have indeed held that view, but the correct position is as follows: anyone who possessed a covenant with a fixed term was allowed to remain until that term expired, however long it might be—even if it exceeded four months. One who had no stipulated term at all was granted a grace period of four months. A third category remains: those whose covenant would expire in less than four months from the day of proclamation. They could be grouped with the first category, so that their deadline would be the end of their own term, short as it might be; or it may be said that they, too, were given four full months, for they have a stronger claim than those with no treaty whatsoever. Allah, exalted is He, knows best.

Imām Aḥmad said (1): ʿAffān related to us; Ḥammād narrated to us, from Simāk, from Anas ibn Mālik: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ dispatched “Barāʾah” with Abū Bakr, but when he reached Dhū al-Ḥulayfah he said, “None shall convey it except me or a man from my own household,” and he sent it with ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.

Al-Tirmidhī (2) transmitted it through Ḥammād ibn Salamah and said, “It is ḥasan gharīb on the authority of Anas.”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad (3) narrated—through Luwayn, from Muḥammad ibn Jābir, from Simāk, from Ḥanash, from ʿAlī—that when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent after Abū Bakr with ʿAlī and took the document from him at al-Juḥfah, Abū Bakr returned and said, “O Messenger of Allah, has something been revealed concerning me?” He replied, “No; but Gabriel came to me and said: only you or a man from your own self may deliver it on your behalf.” This isnād is weak, and its content contains an irregularity; Allah knows best.

Imām Aḥmad also said (4): Sufyān narrated to us, from Abū Isḥāq, from Zayd ibn Yuthīʿ—a man from Hamdān—who said: We asked ʿAlī, “With what were you commissioned when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent you with Abū Bakr during the pilgrimage?” He replied, “With four matters: no soul will enter Paradise save a believer; no one may circumambulate the House naked; whoever has a covenant with the Messenger of Allah, his covenant remains until its appointed term; and after this year idolaters and Muslims shall not perform the pilgrimage together.” Al-Tirmidhī (5) likewise related it through Sufyān—namely Ibn ʿUyaynah—from Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī, from Zayd ibn Yuthīʿ, from ʿAlī, and he declared it “ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.”

He then said: It has also been narrated by Shuʿbah from Abū Isḥāq, who reported it from Zayd ibn Uthayl; and by al-Thawrī from Abū Isḥāq, from one of his companions, from ʿAlī.

I say: Ibn Jarīr (6) has also transmitted it, in a report of Maʿmar, from Abū Isḥāq, from al-Ḥārith, from ʿAlī.