“When I drew near to Madinah, I made my mount kneel, unpacked my saddlebag, put on my finest clothes, and then entered. There I found the Messenger of Allah ﷺ delivering a sermon, and the people were staring at me. I said to the man beside me, ‘Servant of Allah, did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ mention me?’ He answered, ‘Yes, he mentioned you in the most complimentary manner. While he was speaking he paused and said:
‘A man will now come through this door—or through this passage—who is among the best of those from Yemen; a trace of an angel is upon his face.’
Jarīr continued, ‘So I praised Allah for the favor He had granted me.’
Abū Qaṭan said: I asked him, ‘Did you hear this directly from the Prophet, or from al-Mughīrah ibn Shibl?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’
Imām Aḥmad later narrated the report through Abū Naʿīm and Isḥāq ibn Yūsuf, and al-Nasāʾī also recorded it—through al-Faḍl ibn Mūsā—from Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī, from al-Mughīrah ibn Shibl (also said: ibn Shubayl), from ʿAwf al-Bajalī al-Kūfī, from Jarīr ibn ʿAbd Allāh. No one else related it from Jarīr.
Al-Nasāʾī likewise transmitted it from Qutaybah, from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, from Qays ibn Abī Ḥāzim, from Jarīr with the wording: ‘A man will enter upon you through this door whose face bears a touch of an angel…’—a chain that meets the criteria of the two Ṣaḥīḥs.
Imām Aḥmad also said: Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd narrated to us; Ismāʿīl narrated to us, from Qays, from Jarīr, who declared, ‘Since I entered Islam, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ never barred me from his presence, and whenever he saw me he smiled at me.’
All of the major compilers—except Abū Dāwūd—reported the narration through various chains from Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, from Qays ibn Abī Ḥāzim, from Jarīr.
The two Ṣaḥīḥs add the following detail: ‘I complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ that I could not keep my seat on horseback, so he struck his hand upon my chest and said, “O Allah, make him firm, and make him a guide who is himself rightly guided.”’ Al-Nasāʾī also related this version from Qutaybah, from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from