al-Aḥwaṣ related from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “If I were to choose anyone as an intimate friend (khalīl), I would surely have taken Abū Bakr; but your Companion is the intimate friend of Allah.” (1)

Muslim also recorded the ḥadīth: through Shuʿbah and al-Thawrī from Abū Isḥāq, and through ʿAbd Allāh ibn Murrah and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Hudhayl—each of them transmitting from Abū al-Aḥwaṣ ʿAwf ibn Mālik al-Jushamī—who said, “I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd narrate from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: ‘If I were to take anyone as an intimate friend, I would have taken Abū Bakr as such; rather, he is my brother and companion, whereas Allah has taken your Companion as an intimate friend.’” (2) This is Muslim’s exact wording.

Muslim likewise relates the report on his own authority from Jundub ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Bajalī, as will be mentioned (3); the basic text of the ḥadīth appears in both Ṣaḥīḥs through Abū Saʿīd (4). In al-Bukhārī’s exclusive narrations it comes by way of Ibn ʿAbbās (5) and Ibn al-Zubayr (6), as I have already cited in the chapter on the merits of al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him). There I also included the versions transmitted by Anas, al-Barāʾ, Jābir, Kaʿb ibn Mālik, Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Muʿallā, Abū Hurayrah, Abū Wāqid al-Laythī, and ʿĀʾishah, Mother of the Believers—may Allah be pleased with them all.

Abū Nuʿaym further cites it with the chain of ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Zahr, from ʿAlī ibn Yazīd, from al-Qāsim, from Abū Umāmah, from Kaʿb ibn Mālik, who said: “I last saw your Prophet ﷺ five days before his passing, and I heard him say: ‘No prophet has ever lived without having an intimate friend from among his community. My intimate friend is Abū Bakr, while Allah has taken your Companion as an intimate friend.’” (7) This isnād is weak.

Another route goes through Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, who reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Every prophet has an intimate friend; my intimate friend is Abū Bakr ibn Abī Quḥāfah, and the intimate friend of your Companion is the All-Merciful.” (8) This route is rare.

Yet another chain is reported from ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk, from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, from Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr ibn Nufayr, from Kathīr ibn Murrah, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared: “Indeed Allah has taken me as an intimate friend just as He took Abraham as an intimate friend; in Paradise my dwelling and Abraham’s dwelling face one another—”