…remains of those who pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ except me and him, and I testify that I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say:

“You will die, O Surrāq, in an open wilderness, and the best of my community will lay you in your grave.” (1)

This report also comes through another chain which states that nine men had pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz made him take an oath; when he did so, ʿUmar wept. (2) Al-Bayhaqī preferred this version and considered it sound—and Allah knows best.

A different ḥadīth—whose authenticity is questionable—praises Wahb ibn Munabbih while censuring Ghaylān. Al-Bayhaqī relates, on the authority of Hishām ibn ʿAmmār and others, from al-Walīd ibn Muslim, from Marwān ibn Sālim al-Qurqasānī, from al-Aḥwaṣ ibn Ḥakīm, from Khālid ibn Maʿdān, from ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“In my community there will be a man called Wahb, to whom Allah will grant wisdom; and a man called Ghaylān, who will be more harmful to my community than Satan.” (3)

This narration is unsound, because Marwān ibn Sālim is an abandoned transmitter. And through the same chain that ends with al-Walīd, we were told by Ibn Luhayʿah, from Mūsā ibn Wardān, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Prophet ﷺ said:

“Satan will cry out once in Syria, and one-third of them will deny the Divine Decree.”

Al-Bayhaqī remarked: “If this report—and others like it—is authentic, it alludes to Ghaylān and to the denial of predestination that spread in Syria because of him, until he was executed.” (4)

A reference to Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb al-Quraẓī and his mastery of Qurʾānic exegesis and memorisation

Ḥarmalah reported from Ibn Wahb: Abū Ṣakhr informed me, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughīth ibn Abī Burdah al-Ẓafarī, from his father, from his grandfather, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say:

“From one of the two Kāhin tribes there will arise a man who will study the Qur’an with a diligence that no one after him will equal.” (5)

Al-Bayhaqī also narrated—from al-Ḥākim, from al-Aṣamm, from Ismāʿīl al-Qāḍī—who said: Abū Thābit related to us; Ibn Wahb related to us; ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn ʿUmar related to me; from Rabīʿah ibn Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“In one of the two Kāhin tribes there will be a man who will study the Qur’an as no one else does.” (6)

People used to think that this referred to Muḥammad ibn