and she soon returned. While the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was fastening her again, the Bedouin awoke and exclaimed, “May my father and mother be sacrificed for you, O Messenger of Allah! I caught her only a short while ago. Do you have some need of her?” He replied, “Yes.” The Bedouin said, “Then she is yours.” The Prophet ﷺ thereupon set her free, and she raced away across the desert in joy, striking the ground with her hooves and proclaiming, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah.”

Abū Nuʿaym remarked: This report was also narrated by Ādam ibn Abī Iyās, who said, “My trustworthy son-in-law Nūḥ ibn al-Haytham related it to me from Ḥassān ibn Aghlab, from his father, from Hishām ibn Ḥassān,” and he stopped at Hishām.

It was likewise transmitted by Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥāmid al-Faqīh in his book Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah through the chain of Ibrāhīm ibn Mahdī, from Ibn Aghlab ibn Tamīm, from his father, from Hishām ibn Ḥassān, from al-Ḥasan ibn Ḍabbah, from Umm Salamah—may Allah be pleased with her—with the same wording.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī said: Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ informed me, by authorisation; Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Duḥaym al-Shaybānī told us; Aḥmad ibn Ḥāzim ibn Abī Gharzah al-Ghifārī told us; ʿAlī ibn Qādim told us; Abū al-ʿAlāʾ Khālid ibn Ṭahmān told us, from ʿAṭiyyah, from Abū Saʿīd, who said:

The Prophet ﷺ passed by a gazelle that was tethered to a tent. The gazelle pleaded, “O Messenger of Allah, release me so that I may go and nurse my fawns; then I will return and allow you to bind me again.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ observed, “It is the game of some people and the pledge of others.” He accepted her oath, set her loose, and before long she came back, her udder emptied of milk. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ tied her once more, then went to her owners’ tent, asked them to give her to him, and they did so; whereupon he freed her. He then said, “If animals knew about death what you know, you would never eat a fat one among them.”

Al-Bayhaqī added: The story is also reported through another, weak chain. Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Qāḍī told us; Abū ʿAlī Ḥāmid ibn Muḥammad al-Harawī told us; Bishr ibn Mūsā told us; Abū Ḥafṣ ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī told us; Yaʿlā ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghazzāl told us; al-Haytham ibn Ḥammād told us, from Abū Kathīr, from Zayd ibn Arqam, who said:

I was with the Prophet ﷺ along one of the lanes of Madinah when we came upon the tent of a Bedouin, and there was a gazelle bound to it. She said, “O Messenger of Allah, this Bedouin has captured me. I have two fawns in the wilderness and the milk has clotted in my teats. He neither slaughters me so that I might find relief, nor releases me so I can return to my fawns.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked, “If I set you free, will you come back?” She replied, “Yes, otherwise may Allah punish me with the torment of the tax-collector.” So the Messenger of Allah ﷺ released her