Another chain

ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad (1) said: Abū Khaythamah narrated to us; Shabābah ibn Sawwār narrated to us; Nuʿaym ibn Ḥakīm narrated to me; Abū Maryam narrated to me that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“A people will shoot out of Islam just as an arrow passes clean through its target. They will recite the Quran yet it will not go beyond their collarbones. Glad tidings to the one who kills them or is killed by them; their distinguishing mark is a man with a mutilated hand (2).”

Abū Dāwūd said in his Sunan (3): Bishr ibn Khālid narrated to us; Shabābah ibn Sawwār narrated to us, from Nuʿaym ibn Ḥakīm, from Abū Maryam (4) who said: That mutilated man was indeed with us in the mosque that day; we would sit with him by night (5) and by day. He was poor, and I saw him among the destitute sharing ʿAlī’s food with the people. I even clothed him with one of my hooded cloaks (burnus).

Abū Maryam added: The mutilated man was called Nāfiʿ Dhū al-Thudayyah. In his hand was something like a woman’s breast, topped by a nipple like that of a breast, on which grew a few hairs resembling a cat’s whiskers.

Another chain

The ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī said in Dalāʾil (6): Abū ʿAlī al-Rawdhbārī informed us; Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr ibn Shawdhab, the Qurʾān-reciter of Wāsiṭ, informed us there; Shuʿayb ibn Ayyūb narrated to us; Abū Nuʿaym (7) al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn narrated to us, from Sufyān—meaning al-Thawrī—from Muḥammad ibn Qays, from Abū Mūsā, a man of his tribe, who said:

I was with ʿAlī, and he kept saying, “Look for the maimed man.” They searched but did not find him. ʿAlī began to perspire and declared, “By Allah, I have neither lied nor been lied to.” They then discovered him in a river or irrigation channel, whereupon ʿAlī prostrated in gratitude.

Another chain

Abū Bakr al-Bazzār (8) said: Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā and Muḥammad ibn Maʿmar (9) narrated to me; ʿAbd al-Ṣamad narrated to us;