of gold and silver, together with a black donkey and a basket.

He said: The Prophet ﷺ spoke to the donkey, and the donkey spoke back. He asked it, “What is your name?”

It replied, “Yazīd ibn Shihāb. From my fore-sire Allah has produced sixty donkeys, none of whom was ever mounted by anyone but a prophet. Of my forefather’s line I alone remain, and of the prophets only you remain. I have been waiting in hope that you would ride me. Before you I belonged to a Jewish man. I would trip him on purpose; he starved me and beat my back.”

The Prophet ﷺ said, “I name you Yaʿfūr. O Yaʿfūr!”

“At your service,” it answered.

He asked, “Do you have any desire for females?”

“No,” it said.

The Prophet ﷺ would ride him whenever he had a need. When he dismounted, he would send the donkey to someone’s door; it would go and knock with its head, and when the owner came out it would gesture to him to answer the summons of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

When the Prophet ﷺ passed away, the donkey went to a well that belonged to Abū al-Haytham al-Tayyihān, threw itself in, and that became its grave, out of grief for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. (1)

The Ḥadīth of the Ḥumrah, a well-known bird

Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī said: Al-Masʿūdī narrated to us, from al-Ḥasan ibn Saʿd, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, from his father, who said:

We were travelling with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ when a man entered a thicket and took the egg of a ḥumrah. The mother bird came fluttering about the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and his Companions. He asked, “Who has distressed this bird?” A man in the group said, “I took its egg.” He said, “Return it, return it, out of mercy for her.” (2)

Al-Bayhaqī also narrated—through al-Ḥākim and others—from al-Aṣamm, from Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār: Abū Muʿāwiyah narrated to us, from Abū Isḥāq al-Shaybānī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, from his father, who said:

We were with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on a journey when we passed a tree that held two chicks of a ḥumrah, and we took them. The mother bird came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, beating its wings over him. He asked, “Who has distressed this bird by taking her chicks?” We said, “We did.” He said, “Return them.” So we returned them to their place, but the bird did not come back. (4)