…leaving only a patch the size of a dirham on his body; that he was dutiful to his mother; and that the Prophet ﷺ instructed ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb to seek forgiveness for him. This man was indeed encountered in ʿUmar’s time exactly as the ḥadīth had described him. I have set out the various chains and wordings of this report, together with an extended discussion, in the compendium I compiled on the Musnad of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb—may Allah be pleased with him; and to Allah belong all praise and favour.

Among the relevant narrations is what Abū Dāwūd recorded: ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah told us; Wakīʿ told us; al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jumayʿ told us; he said: Jarrīr ibn ʿAbd Allāh and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Khallād al-Anṣārī related to me, from Umm Waraqah bint Nawfal:

When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ set out for Badr she said, “Messenger of Allah, permit me to go out with you on the campaign so that I may nurse your wounded—perhaps Allah will grant me martyrdom.” He replied, “Stay in your house, for Allah will grant you martyrdom.”(1)

Hence she was thereafter called “the Martyr.” She had memorised the Qur’an and asked the Prophet ﷺ to allow a muʾadhdhin to give the call to prayer in her home.(2) She had stipulated the manumission of a slave boy and a slave girl upon her death, yet the two rose against her one night and smothered her in her quilt(3) until she died, after which they fled. At daybreak ʿUmar arose among the people and said, “Whoever has knowledge of these two, or has seen them, let him bring them forward.” They were brought, and he ordered that they be crucified; they were the first to be crucified in Madinah.

Al-Bayhaqī likewise transmitted the report through Abū Nuʿaym: al-Walīd ibn Jumayʿ told us; my grandmother told me, from Umm Waraqah bint ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to visit her and would call her “the Martyr.” He recounted the story, and at its close ʿUmar said, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ spoke the truth; he used to say, ‘Let us go and visit the Martyr.’”(4)

Another instance is what al-Bukhārī narrates(5) from Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī, on the authority of ʿAwf ibn Mālik, in the ḥadīth concerning the six signs after his death, wherein it states:

“Then a widespread death will strike you like quʿāṣ among sheep.”(6)(7)

And that is precisely what occurred in the caliphate of ʿUmar: the plague of ʿAmwās in the year 18 AH, through which many leading Companions passed away—among them Muʿādh ibn Jabal, Abū ʿUbaydah, Yazīd ibn Abī Sufyān, Shuraḥbīl ibn Ḥasana, Abū Jandal ibn Suhayl ibn ʿAmr together with his father, and al-Faḍl ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib—may Allah be pleased with them all.

Imām Aḥmad said: Wakīʿ narrated to us; al-Nahhās ibn Qahm narrated to us; Shaddād Abū ʿAmmār narrated to us, from Muʿādh ibn Jabal, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared, “Six things are among the portents of the Hour: my death, the conquest of Jerusalem, and a death that will seize…”