He asked them, “Do the two of you say what he says?”
They replied, “Yes.”
He said, “By Allah, were it not that envoys are not put to death, I would have struck off your necks.”(1)
Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī(2) reports: al-Masʿūdī related to us, from ʿĀṣim, from Abū Wāʾil, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, who said:
Ibn al-Nawwāḥah and Ibn Uthāl came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ as emissaries of Musaylimah the arch-liar. He said to them, “Do you testify that I am the Messenger of Allah?”
They answered, “We testify that Musaylimah is the Messenger of Allah.”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then declared, “I believe in Allah and His messengers. If it were lawful to kill an envoy, I would certainly kill the two of you.”
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd continued: “Thus the Sunnah was established that envoys are not to be killed. As for Ibn Uthāl, Allah spared us his evil; but Ibn al-Nawwāḥah weighed on my heart until Allah enabled me to deal with him.”
Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī(3) said: “As for Thumāmah(4) ibn Uthāl, he embraced Islam, and the narrative of his conversion has already been mentioned. Regarding Ibn al-Nawwāḥah, Abū Zakariyyā ibn Abī Isḥāq al-Muzakkī(5) informed us: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb narrated to us; Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn narrated to us; Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid narrated to us, from Qays ibn Abī Ḥāzim, who said:
A man came to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd and said, ‘I passed by one of the mosques of Banū Ḥanīfah, and they were reciting words that Allah did not reveal to Muḥammad ﷺ:
“By those who grind with grinding,
by those who knead with kneading,
by those who bake with baking,
by those who crumble with crumbling,
by those who swallow with swallowing.”’
ʿAbd Allāh sent for them, and they were brought—seventy men, headed by ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Nawwāḥah. He ordered that Ibn al-Nawwāḥah be executed, and he was killed. Then he said, ‘We could not keep Satan away from such people, but we shall drive them off to Syria; perhaps Allah will relieve us of them.’
Al-Wāqidī(8) said: “The delegation of Banū Ḥanīfah numbered a little over ten men. Their leader was Salmā ibn Ḥanẓalah, and among them were al-Rajjāl ibn ʿUnfuwah, Ṭalq ibn ʿAlī, ʿAlī ibn Sinān, and Musaylimah ibn Ḥabīb the arch-liar. They lodged in the house of Ramla(9) bint al-Ḥārith, where hospitality was extended to them: they were provided lunch and dinner—sometimes bread and meat, sometimes bread and milk, and sometimes…"} }