Another man is mentioned, and he said, “I know nothing about him.” Ibn al-Athīr comments in al-Ghābah (1): “It is possible that the transmitter of this report is one of those two individuals, or a third person altogether. All praise belongs to Allah.”

The Last Person to Have Been in Contact with the Prophet ﷺ

Imām Aḥmad (2) narrated: “Yaʿqūb told us; my father told us; from Ibn Isḥāq; who said: My father, Isḥāq ibn Yasār, related to me, from Miqsam Abū al-Qāsim, the freedman of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Nawfal, from his master ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith, who said:

‘I performed ʿumrah with ʿAlī during the caliphate of ʿUmar—or perhaps that of ʿUthmān. He lodged with his sister, Umm Hānīʾ bint Abī Ṭālib. When he had completed his ʿumrah he returned, and water was poured for him so that he might bathe; he bathed, and when he had finished a group of Iraqis entered and said, “Abū al-Ḥasan, we have come to ask you about a matter we would like you to explain.”

He replied, “I suppose al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah is telling you that he was the last person to have been in contact with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.”

They said, “Exactly—this is what we have come to ask you about.”

He said, “The last person to have been in contact with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, was Qutham ibn ʿAbbās.”’

Aḥmad alone reports this through the present chain. Yūnus ibn Bukayr also related it from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq in exactly the same wording, except that he prefaced it with the statement:

‘Ibn Isḥāq said: Al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah used to say, “I took my ring and cast it into the grave of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. When the people had left I said, ‘My ring has fallen in.’ In reality I had thrown it in deliberately so that I might touch the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and thus be the last person to have been in contact with him.”’

Ibn Isḥāq (4) further said: ‘My father, Isḥāq ibn Yasār, related to me, from Miqsam, from his master, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith, who said: “I performed ʿumrah with ʿAlī …”’ and he repeated the foregoing account.

What is reported from al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah does not prove that he attained what he had hoped, for ʿAlī—may Allah ennoble his face—may well have refused to let him descend into the grave, ordering someone else instead to hand the ring back to him. From what has already been related, the person who handed it to him would have been Qutham ibn ʿAbbās.

Al-Wāqidī said: ‘ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād related to me, from his father, from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUtbah, who said: Al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah threw his ring into the grave of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. ʿAlī thereupon remarked, “You only threw it in so that you could claim, ‘I descended into the Prophet’s grave.’” He then went down himself and retrieved it for him—or else ordered another man to hand it to him.’