Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān also relates:

Ḥajjāj ibn Minhāl narrated to us; Ḥammād ibn Salamah narrated to us, from ʿAlī ibn Zayd, from Aws ibn Khālid, who said:

Whenever I visited Abū Maḥdhūrah he would ask me about Samura, and when I visited Samura he would ask me about Abū Maḥdhūrah. I therefore said to Abū Maḥdhūrah, “Why is it that each time I come to you, you ask about Samura, and when I go to Samura he asks about you?”

He replied, “Samura, Abū Hurayrah, and I were once together in a single house when the Prophet ﷺ entered and said,

‘The last of you to die will be in the Fire.’

Thereafter Abū Hurayrah died, then Abū Maḥdhūrah, and finally Samura.” (1)

ʿAbd al-Razzāq said:

Maʿmar informed us: I heard Ibn Ṭāwūs and others say that the Prophet ﷺ said to Abū Hurayrah, Samura ibn Jundub, and another man,

‘The last of you to die will be in the Fire.’

That third man died first, leaving Abū Hurayrah and Samura. Whenever someone wished to distress Abū Hurayrah he would say, “Samura has died,” whereupon Abū Hurayrah would faint and collapse. In the end Abū Hurayrah died before Samura, and Samura put many people to the sword. (2)

Al-Bayhaqī declared the bulk of these reports weak because their chains are broken or mursal. He added: Some scholars have said that Samura died in a fire. He further commented: It is possible that he will be made to enter the Fire on account of his sins, then be delivered from it through his faith and be brought out by the intercession of the intercessors. Allah knows best. (3)

Al-Bayhaqī also transmitted—through Hilāl ibn al-ʿAlāʾ al-Raqī—that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿāwiyah narrated, naming the person from whom he heard, that Samura was burning incense, became heedless of himself, and his family likewise neglected him until the fire caught hold of him. (4)

I say: Others have mentioned that Samura ibn Jundub, may Allah be pleased with him, was stricken with a severe bout of tetanus; a cauldron filled with boiling water would be placed over a fire for him, and he would sit above it to warm himself with its steam. One day he fell into it and died, may Allah be pleased with him. His death came in 59 AH, one year after Abū Hurayrah. He used to deputise for Ziyād ibn Sumayyah—acting as governor of Basra when Ziyād travelled to Kūfa, and of Kūfa when he went to Basra—spending six months of each year in each city. He was harsh against the Khārijites, killing great numbers of them, and would say, “They are the worst people ever slain beneath the canopy of heaven.” Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, and other scholars of Basra spoke well of him, may Allah be pleased with him. (5)

[The Report of Rāfiʿ ibn Khadīj]

Al-Bayhaqī also narrated—from Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm, from ʿAmr ibn Marzūq al-Wāshihī—who said: “Yahyā ibn …”