She brought it out, and it was like this—Israʾīl pointed with three fingers—and inside it were five reddish hairs (1).
Al-Bukhārī (2) likewise reported the narration through Mālik ibn Ismāʿīl, from Israʾīl.
Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān said:
Abū Nuʿaym told us; ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Iyād told us; Iyād (3) narrated to me from Abū Rimthah, who said:
“I set out with my father toward the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. When I saw him, my father asked, ‘Do you know who this is?’ I replied, ‘No.’ He said, ‘This is the Messenger of Allah.’ My skin tingled when he said that, for I had imagined that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would be something unlike other people. Yet there he was: a man with abundant hair bearing a tinge of henna, and he was wearing two green striped cloaks (5).”
Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and al-Nasāʾī (6) have also related this ḥadīth through ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Iyād ibn Laqiṭ, from his father, from Abū Rimthah—whose name is Ḥabīb ibn Ḥayyān, though some say it was Rafāʿah ibn Yathrabī. Al-Tirmidhī remarked, “It is gharīb; we know it only through the narration of Iyād,” as he put it.
Al-Nasāʾī likewise transmitted it through Sufyān al-Thawrī (7) and ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmayr (8), both of them narrating from Iyād ibn Laqiṭ, though only part of the report.
Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān also recorded it from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Mukharrimī, from Abū Sufyān al-Ḥimyarī, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Ḥumrah, from Ghailān ibn Jāmiʿ, from Iyād ibn Laqiṭ, from Abū Rimthah, who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to dye his hair with henna and katam, and his hair reached to his shoulders or just below them.” (9)
Abū Dāwūd (10) said: ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Muṭarrif ibn Sufyān narrated to us; ʿAmr ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Ibn Abī Rawwād informed us, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would wear Sibti sandals and tint his beard with wars and saffron, and Ibn ʿUmar used to do the same.