Al-Bayhaqī and others relate many miraculous favors (karamāt) granted to him. Among them is that he once led his army across the surface of the sea and the water reached only the horses’ knees—some report that even the bottoms of their hoofs did not get wet. He had ordered the troops to repeat: “O Most Forbearing, O Most Great!” On another occasion, when the army needed water, he implored Allah and a rainfall came down in exactly the amount required. When he was buried, no trace of his grave could be seen at all; he had asked Allah for that, and these accounts will be discussed shortly, God willing, in the book Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah.
He transmitted three hadiths from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
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Imam Aḥmad reports—through Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥumayd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, from al-Sāʾib ibn Yazīd, from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Ḥaḍramī—that the Prophet ﷺ said: “After completing his rites, the Emigrant may remain (in Mecca) for three days.” This narration is found in all the canonical collections.
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Imam Aḥmad also relates—through Hushaym, from Manṣūr, from Ibn Sīrīn, from the son of al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Ḥaḍramī—that his father once wrote to the Prophet ﷺ, beginning the letter with his own name. Abū Dāwūd records the same report from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.
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The third hadith is narrated by Aḥmad and Ibn Mājah, through Muḥammad ibn Zayd, from Ḥayyān al-Aʿraj, from al-ʿAlāʾ. He wrote from Bahrain to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about an orchard jointly owned by brothers, one of whom had embraced Islam. The Prophet ordered him to levy a tithe on the one who accepted Islam and a kharāj (land tax) on those who had not.
Among the scribes was also al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿUqbah. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir says: “He served as a scribe for the Prophet ﷺ, and I have found no one who mentions him except in the report that follows.” He then cites his chain back to ʿAtīq ibn Yaʿqūb, who said: ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī Bakr ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm narrated to me, from his father, from his grandfather, from ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm, that “these are the parcels of land the Messenger of Allah ﷺ granted to these people,” and he listed them, mentioning among them: