people, is Ṭalḥah among you?’ They kept silent. Then he repeated, ‘O people, is Ṭalḥah among you (1)?’ At that, Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd Allāh stood up.
ʿUthmān said to him, ‘Do I not see you here? I never thought you would be with a group that hears my summons three times and still does not answer. I adjure you by Allah, O Ṭalḥah—do you recall the day when you and I were with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in such-and-such a place and none of his Companions were with him except you and me?’
He replied, ‘Yes!’ ʿUthmān continued, ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then said to you:
“O Ṭalḥah, every prophet has among his Companions one intimate from his community who will be with him in Paradise, and this ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (meaning me) is my companion in Paradise.”’
Ṭalḥah said, ‘O Allah, yes!’ He then withdrew, but they did not allow him to leave.
[Another Chain]
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad (2) said: Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Muqaddamī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī narrated to us; Hilāl ibn Hiqq (3) narrated to us, from al-Jarīrī, from Thumāmah ibn Ḥazn (4) al-Qushayrī, who said:
I was present at the house on the day ʿUthmān was killed. He looked out at the crowd and said, ‘Call for me the two of your men who have incited you against me.’ They were brought, and he said:
‘I adjure you by Allah, do you know (5) that when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ arrived in Madinah the mosque had become too small for its people, so he said: “Who will buy this plot of land from his own wealth, add it to the mosque for the Muslims, and receive something better than it in Paradise?” I bought it with my own wealth and placed it at the disposal of the Muslims—yet you prevent me from praying two rakʿahs in it.
‘I adjure you by Allah, do you know that when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ came to Madinah there was no sweet-water well except the Well of Rūmah, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Who will buy it from his own wealth so that his bucket may alternate with the Muslims’ buckets, and he shall have something better than it in Paradise?” I bought it with my own wealth—yet you prevent me from drinking its water.
‘And do you know that I am the one who equipped the Army of Hardship?’
They replied, ‘By Allah, yes!’
Al-Tirmidhī (6) recorded this narration through ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dārimī (7), ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, and others. Al-Nasāʾī (8) transmitted it through Ziyād ibn Ayyūb, all of them from Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir, from Yaḥyā ibn Abī al-Ḥajjāj al-Munqarī (9), from Abū Masʿūd al-Jurayrī with this chain. Al-Tirmidhī said: It is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ (10).