He heard Abū Jaʿfar say, “Al-Sijill is the name of an angel.” Yet Ibn Jarīr’s rejection of the claim that al-Sijill is the name of either a Companion or an angel is entirely sound, and the ḥadith put forward on the matter is highly unreliable. Those who nevertheless included the name among the Companions—such as Ibn Mandah, Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣbahānī, and Ibn al-Athīr in al-Ghābah—did so only out of goodwill toward this report or in tentative acceptance of its authenticity. Allah knows best.

Among the Prophet’s scribes it has also been said—on the authority of Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ—that Saʿd ibn Abī Sarḥ was one of them, but this is a mistake; the correct person is his son, ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Sarḥ, as will be shown shortly, if Allah wills.

Another scribe was ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah, the freedman of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq. Imām Aḥmad related: “ʿAbd al-Raz̤z̤āq narrated to us, from Maʿmar, who said: al-Zuhrī told me, ‘ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mālik al-Mudlijī—who is the nephew of Suraqah ibn Mālik—informed me that his father reported having heard Suraqah say…,’ and he mentioned the story of the Prophet’s emigration ﷺ, in which Suraqah said:

‘I told him, “Your people have set a blood-price on you.” I passed on to them news of his journey and what people intended for him, and I offered them provisions and supplies, yet they took nothing from me and asked only that I keep their affair hidden. I then asked him to write me a pledge of safety. He thereupon instructed ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah to write it for me on a piece of leather, and he departed.’

I have already quoted the full ḥadith in the section on the Hijrah. It has also been related that Abū Bakr himself wrote the document for Suraqah; Allah knows best.

ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah—whose kunya was Abū ʿAmr—was of Azd ancestry, dark-skinned, and had originally been the slave of al-Ṭufayl ibn al-Ḥārith, the uterine brother of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) through their mother Umm Rūmān. He accepted Islam early, before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ entered the house of al-Arqam near al-Ṣafā, practicing his faith in secret. He was tortured in Mecca with the rest of the oppressed believers in an attempt to force him to recant, but he refused. Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq purchased him and set him free, after which he tended Abū Bakr’s sheep outside Mecca.

When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ migrated with Abū Bakr, ʿĀmir accompanied them, riding behind Abū Bakr, and their only other companion was their guide from the tribe of Duʾl, as has been detailed earlier. Upon reaching Madinah, ʿĀmir stayed with Saʿd ibn Khaythamah, and the Prophet ﷺ established a bond of brotherhood between him and Aws ibn Muʿādh. He fought at Badr and Uḥud and was martyred at Biʾr Maʿūnah, as previously mentioned, in the fourth year after the Hijrah, at the age of forty. Allah knows best.

ʿUrwah, Ibn Isḥāq, al-Wāqidī, and others report that the man who killed ʿĀmir at Biʾr Maʿūnah was a certain