“Do you take this alms-due from our wealthy and distribute it among our poor?”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied, “By Allah, yes.”(1)

The man said, “I believe in what you have brought. I am the envoy of those who are behind me among my people, and I am Dimām ibn Thaʿlabah, kinsman of Banū Saʿd ibn Bakr.”

Al-Bukhārī has transmitted this ḥadīth from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf, from al-Layth ibn Saʿd, from Saʿīd al-Maqburī with this wording; the same was reported by Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and Ibn Mājah from al-Layth.(2)

What is remarkable is that al-Nasāʾī also related it through another route. Al-Layth said, “I was informed by Ibn ʿAjlān and others of our companions, from Saʿīd al-Maqburī, from Sharīk, from Anas ibn Mālik,” and he mentioned the incident. Al-Nasāʾī likewise narrated it on the authority of ʿUbayd Allāh al-ʿUmarī, from Saʿīd al-Maqburī, from Abū Hurayrah.(3) Thus, it seems the report ultimately goes through Saʿīd al-Maqburī in both chains.

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We have already cited the narration recorded by Imām Aḥmad—from Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, from Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, from Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās—concerning the arrival of Dimād al-Azdī to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in Mecca before the Hijrah, his acceptance of Islam, and the Islam of his people. We presented it in detail earlier, so there is no need to repeat it here; all praise and gratitude belong to Allah.

The Delegation of Ṭayyiʾ with Zayd al-Khayl(5) 

Ibn Isḥāq(6) said: The delegation of Ṭayyiʾ came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and among them was Zayd al-Khayl, their chief. When they reached him, they spoke with him, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ invited them to Islam. They embraced it, and their Islam was excellent. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said—as someone whom I trust from among the men of Ṭayyiʾ related to me—

“No Arab man has ever been mentioned to me for some virtue and then come to me except that I found him less than what had been said about him—except Zayd al-Khayl, for he has not yet been fully praised.”(7)

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then renamed him Zayd al-Khayr, granted him Fayd(8) and other parcels of land, and wrote a deed for him. He departed from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, returning to his people. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said,

“If Zayd escapes the fever of Madinah, then he…”

He added: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ called that fever by a name other than ḥummā and other than Umm Mildam—though he did not firmly establish it.

He continued: When Zayd reached the region of Najd, at a watering place