Imam Aḥmad said: Abū al-Mughīrah related to us; Ṣafwān related to us; Rāshid ibn Saʿd told me, from ʿĀṣim ibn Ḥumayd al-Sukūnī, from Muʿādh ibn Jabal. He said: When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ dispatched him to Yemen, he accompanied him, giving him counsel while Muʿādh rode and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ walked beneath his mount. When he had finished he said:
“O Muʿādh, it may be that you will not meet me after this year, and perhaps you will pass by this mosque of mine and my grave.”
Muʿādh then wept profusely at the prospect of parting with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, turned his face toward Madinah, and said:
“The people closest to me are the God-fearing, wherever they may be.”
He (Aḥmad) also transmitted it through Abū al-Yamān, from Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr, from Rāshid ibn Saʿd, from ʿĀṣim ibn Ḥumayd al-Sukūnī: When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent Muʿādh to Yemen he went out with him to counsel him, Muʿādh riding and the Messenger of Allah walking beneath his mount. When he had finished he said:
“O Muʿādh, it may be that you will not meet me after this year, and perhaps you will pass by this mosque of mine and my grave.”
Muʿādh wept bitterly at being separated from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, whereupon he said:
“Do not weep, O Muʿādh; there is a proper time for weeping. Excessive weeping is from Satan.”
Imam Aḥmad also said: Abū al-Mughīrah related to us; Ṣafwān related to us; Abū Ziyād Yaḥyā ibn ʿUbayd al-Ghassānī told me, from Yazīd ibn Quṭayb, from Muʿādh, who used to say: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent me to Yemen and said:
“Perhaps you will pass by my grave and my mosque. I have sent you to a people whose hearts are gentle; they fight for the truth”—he said this twice—“so fight, together with those of them who obey you, against those who disobey you until they return to Islam, such that a woman hastens to her husband, a child to his father, and a brother to his brother. Take up residence between the two tribes: al-Sakūn and al-Sakāsik.”
This ḥadīth contains an implicit, indeed explicit, indication that Muʿādh — may Allah be pleased with him — would not meet the Prophet ﷺ again, and so it occurred. He remained in Yemen until the Farewell Pilgrimage, and the Prophet ﷺ passed away eighty-one days after the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage.
As for the ḥadīth in which Imam Aḥmad said: Wakīʿ related to us, from al-Aʿmash, from Abū Ẓabiyān, from Muʿādh: When he returned from Yemen he said, “O Messenger of Allah, I saw men in Yemen prostrating to one another; shall we not prostrate to you?” He replied:
“Had I been going to command a human being to prostrate to another, I would have commanded a wife to prostrate to her husband.”