Al-Shaʿbī said: “I myself saw the donkey being sold—or put up for sale—in al-Kunāsah, the market of Kūfah.”

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā added: “Al-ʿAbbās ibn Hishām related to me, from his father, from his grandfather, from Muslim ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shurayk al-Nakhaʿī, that the owner of the donkey was a man from the tribe of Nakhaʿ called Nubātah ibn Yazīd. He set out on campaign during the caliphate of ʿUmar, and when he reached the district of Shiqq ʿUmayrah(1) his donkey died; thereupon he recounted the whole story.(2)

“Later,” Muslim continued, “he sold that same donkey in al-Kunāsah. Someone said to him, ‘Are you selling the donkey that Allah resurrected for you?’ He replied, ‘What else should I do? A man from my clan composed three lines of verse about it, and I remember this one:
Among us is the man whose donkey God revived—
after every limb and joint of it had died.’

“We have already mentioned in the chapter on his nursing—Allah bless him and grant him peace—what happened with Ḥalīmah al-Saʿdiyyah’s she-donkey: how, on the return journey, it outpaced all the mounts once the Messenger of Allah, while still an infant, rode upon it, even though on the way to Mecca it had been the weakest beast in the caravan.(3)

“Likewise, his blessing became manifest in their shārِif—the milking she-camel—and in their sheep, whose milk and fat increased in abundance. May Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him.

[Another account, together with the story of al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Ḥaḍramī]

Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā said: Khālid ibn Khidāsh ibn ʿAjlān al-Muhallabī and Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Bashshār narrated to me; they said: Ṣāliḥ al-Murrī related to us, from Thābit al-Bunānī, from Anas ibn Mālik, who said:

“We went to visit a young man from the Anṣār. Hardly had we arrived when he passed away. We closed his eyes and spread a cloth over him. Some of us said to his mother, ‘Seek your reward with Allah.’ She asked, ‘Has he died?’ We replied, ‘Yes.’

“She then raised her hands toward the sky and said, ‘O Allah, I believed in You and emigrated to Your Messenger. Whenever a hardship befell me I called upon You and You relieved it. I beseech You, O Allah, do not burden me with this calamity today.’

“Suddenly the young man uncovered his face, and we did not leave until we had eaten—and he ate with us.”

Al-Bayhaqī also transmitted this report through Abū Saʿīd al-Mālīnī, from Ibn ʿAdī, from Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir ibn Abī al-Dumayk, from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿĀʾishah,(4) from Ṣāliḥ ibn Bashīr al-Marrī—one of the ascetics and worshippers of Baṣrah—though there is some weakness in his narration from