and I further testify that when ʿAlī killed them—and I was present with him—the very man whose description the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had given was brought before us.

Al-Bukhārī (1) recorded this narration through Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah, from Hishām ibn Yūsuf, from Maʿmar with the same wording. Al-Bukhārī (2) likewise transmitted it through Shuʿbah, while Muslim (3) related it through Yūnus ibn Bukayr (4) from al-Zuhrī. In another version preserved by Muslim it comes from Ḥarmalah and Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, both of them reporting from Ibn Wahb (5), from Yūnus, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah, and from al-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Hamadānī—also called al-Mishraqī—on the authority of Abū Saʿīd.

Aḥmad (6) also narrated it: from Muḥammad ibn Muṣʿab, from al-Awzāʿī, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah and al-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Mishraqī, from Abū Saʿīd, relating virtually the same wording. In that version it is ʿUmar who sought permission from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to kill the man, and it contains the statement: “They will emerge during a time of division among the people; the faction nearer to Allah will kill them.” Abū Saʿīd said, “I testify that I heard this from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and I was present with ʿAlī when he killed them. He then searched among the slain and found the man exactly as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had described.”

Al-Bukhārī (7) also recorded it from Duḥaym, from al-Walīd, from al-Awzāʿī with the same chain.

Aḥmad (8) said: “I read before ʿAbd al-Raḥmān: Mālik (9), from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, from Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taymī, from Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from Abū Saʿīd, who said:

‘I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say:

“A people will arise among you; you will consider your own prayer insignificant compared with theirs, your fasting insignificant compared with theirs, and your deeds insignificant compared with theirs. They recite the Quran but it does not go past their throats. They shoot out of the religion just as an arrow passes clean through its prey: a man looks at the arrowhead and finds nothing on it, then looks at the shaft and finds nothing, then looks at the feathers (10) and finds nothing, and he even doubts the nock.”’

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said, “Mālik narrated this hadith to us”—meaning this very report.