“Every community has its guardian of trust, and the guardian of trust for this community is Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrāḥ.”
In another wording, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to the delegation from Najrān, “I shall most certainly send with you a man who is truly trustworthy,” and he dispatched Abū ʿUbaydah with them.
Ibn ʿAsākir continues: Among those confidants was Muʿayqīb ibn Abī Fāṭimah al-Dawsī, the client of Banū ʿAbd Shams. He was in charge of the Prophet’s signet ring; some say he also served as his treasurer. Others relate that he accepted Islam early, migrated to Abyssinia on the second expedition, then to Madinah, witnessed Badr and all subsequent battles, and remained the keeper of the ring. The two Shaykhs—Abū Bakr and ʿUmar—later appointed him over the Public Treasury. It is reported that he developed leprosy, so ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ordered that he be treated with colocynth, and the illness was arrested. He died during the caliphate of ʿUthmān; some place his death in the year 40 AH. Allah knows best.
Imām Aḥmad relates: “Yahyā ibn Abī Bukayr narrated to us; Shaybān narrated from Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from Abū Salamah, who told me that Muʿayqīb said the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, regarding a man who smooths the earth where he will prostrate, declared: ‘If you must do it, then do it only once.’”
Both Ṣaḥīḥs record this ḥadīth through Shaybān al-Naḥwī; Muslim also transmits it via Hishām al-Dustuwāʾī, and al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī, and Ibn Mājah add the route of al-Awzāʿī—all of them reporting from Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr. Al-Tirmidhī graded the report “sound and authentic (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ).”
Imām Aḥmad further narrates: “Khalaf ibn al-Walīd told us; Ayyūb ibn ʿUtbah narrated from Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from Abū Salamah, from Muʿayqīb that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘Woe to the heels from the Fire.’” This wording is unique to Imām Aḥmad.