I say: Thereafter those wars subsided following the days of Ṣiffīn, and in the midst of them ʿAlī fought the Khārijites, as the rigorously authenticated ḥadith cited earlier makes clear with its detailed description of them and of the man with the maimed arm (1).

[Another ḥadith]
Imām Aḥmad (2) said: Isḥāq ibn ʿĪsā narrated to us; Yaḥyā ibn Sulaym told me; from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān; from Mujāhid; from Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ashṭar; from his father; from Umm Dharr, who said:

“When the time of Abū Dharr’s death drew near I began to weep. He asked, ‘Why are you crying?’ I replied, ‘How can I not weep when you are passing away in a barren desert, I have no one to help bury you, and I possess no cloth large enough to shroud you in?’

He said, ‘Do not weep; rather, rejoice! I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say to a group of us:

“One of you will certainly die in an open wilderness, and a band of believers will attend his burial.”

None of that group has died except in a town and among people, and I am the one destined to die in the wilderness. By Allah, he spoke the truth and I have not lied.’”

Aḥmad—may Allah have mercy on him—is the sole transmitter of this report. Al-Bayhaqī also related it from ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, through Yaḥyā ibn Sulaym al-Ṭāʾifī, in a longer version (3). The report is well known concerning his death—may Allah be pleased with him—at al-Rabadha in 32 AH, during the caliphate of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān. Among the small company who reached him while he was in the throes of death (4) was ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, who led the funeral prayer over him; he then returned to Madinah, stayed there ten nights, and himself passed away—may Allah be pleased with him.

[Another ḥadith]
Al-Bayhaqī said: Al-Ḥākim informed us; al-Aṣamm informed us; Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣaghghānī narrated to us; ʿUmar ibn Saʿīd al-Dimashqī narrated to us; Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrated to us; from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUbayd Allāh; from Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ashʿarī; from Abū ’l-Dardāʾ, who said:

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, it has reached me that you say, ‘Some people will most certainly apostatize after having believed.’”

He replied, “Yes—and you are not among them.”

Abū ’l-Dardāʾ, therefore, died before ʿUthmān was killed (5).

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān said: Ṣafwān related to us; al-Walīd ibn Muslim related to us; ʿAbd Allāh—or ʿAbd al-Ghaffār—ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUbayd Allāh related to us, from his father, who reported from one of the early elders, that he heard Abū ’l-Dardāʾ say: “The Messenger of Allah said—”