until it dropped to the ground and began to hop along until it reached the Messenger of Allah. He then said to it,

“Return.”

So it went back until it resumed its place. The Bedouin declared, “I bear witness that you are the Messenger of Allah,” and he believed. (1)

Al-Bayhaqī said: “Al-Bukhārī recorded it in al-Tārīkh through Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Iṣbahānī.” (2)

I say: Perhaps he first accused it of being sorcery, then reconsidered and embraced Islam once Allah guided him—Allah knows best.

Another report, on the same matter, from Ibn ʿUmar:

Al-Ḥākim Abū ʿAbdullāh an-Naysābūrī said: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh al-Warrāq informed us; al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān informed us; Abū ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Abān al-Juʿfī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Fuḍayl narrated to us, from Abū Ḥayyān, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿUmar, who said:

We were with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on a journey when a Bedouin approached. When he drew near, the Messenger of Allah asked him,

“Where are you heading?”

He replied, “To my family.”

The Prophet said, “Shall I not direct you to something good?”

He asked, “What is it?”

He answered, “That you testify there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah alone with no partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.”

The man said, “Do you have a witness to what you say?”

He replied, “This tree.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then summoned the tree, which was on the edge of the valley. It came scraping the ground until it stood before him. He made it testify three times, and it testified that what he had said was true. It then returned to its root, and the Bedouin went back to his people, saying, “If they follow me, I will bring them to you; otherwise I will return to you and stay with you.” (3)

This chain of transmission is sound, yet it is not found in the canonical Ṣaḥīḥ collections, nor did Imām Aḥmad report it. (4) Allah knows best.

Chapter: The Moaning of the Palm-Trunk—its longing for the Messenger of Allah and its grief at his separation

This event has been reported by several Companions through numerous chains that leave no room for doubt in the judgment of the leading scholars of ḥadīth.

Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ said in his book al-Shifāʾ (5): “It is a famous, widely circulated, mutawātir ḥadīth. The authors of the authentic collections have recorded it, and it has been transmitted by about a dozen Companions, among them Ubayy, Jābir, Anas, Ibn ʿUmar, Ibn ʿAbbās, Sahl ibn Saʿd, Abū Saʿīd, Buraydah, Umm Salamah, and al-Muṭṭalib ibn Abī Wadāʿah, may Allah be pleased with them all.” (6)