ʿĀʾishah reported: “The Messenger of Allah — peace and blessings be upon him — passed away on Monday and was buried on the night before Wednesday.” Similar wording has reached us through several other reports, and this is the position explicitly affirmed by more than one Imām, both early and later authorities, including Sulaymān ibn Ṭar­khān al-Taymī, Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq, Ibn Isḥāq, Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, and others.

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān (1) related, through ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn (2) Bakkār, from Muḥammad ibn Shuʿayb, from al-Awzāʿī, that he said: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, died on Monday before midday and was buried on Tuesday.”

Likewise, Imām Aḥmad (1) transmitted from ʿAbd al-Razzāq, from Ibn Jurayj, who said: “I was informed that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, died mid-morning on Monday and was buried the following day, also mid-morning.” (3)(4)

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān (5) also said: “Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr narrated to us, Sufyān narrated to us, from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad, from his father, and from Ibn Jurayj, from Abū Jaʿfar, that the Messenger of Allah died on Monday and remained that day, that night, and Tuesday until the end of the day.” This is an unusual view; the well-known position held by the majority is what we have already mentioned — that he, peace be upon him, died on Monday and was buried on the night before Wednesday.

Another odd report on the matter is what Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān (6) transmitted from ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Bakkār, from Muḥammad ibn Shuʿayb, from al-Nuʿmān (7) from Makḥūl, who said: “The Messenger of Allah was born on Monday, revelation first came to him on Monday, he emigrated on Monday, and he died on Monday at the age of sixty-two and a half years. He then remained unburied for three days; people would enter upon him in small groups, offering the prayer over him without forming rows and without anyone leading them.” His statement that he was left unburied for three days is strange. The sound report is that he remained through the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday and was buried on the night before Wednesday, as we have already set forth. Allah knows best.

The opposite view is what Sayf (8) narrated from Hishām, from his father: “The Messenger of Allah died on Monday, was washed on Monday, and was buried on the night before Tuesday.” Sayf added: “Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd also narrated both of these together to us on one occasion, through ʿAmrah (9) from ʿĀʾishah,” and this