‘Whose tent is this?’
They answered, ‘It belongs to Salmān al-Fārisī.’
He said, ‘Will you not come with me so that he may speak to us and we can listen to him⟮1⟯?’

Some of the men went with him, and he said:
‘Abū ʿAbd Allāh, if only you would bring your tent nearer to us and stay close, so that you could relate to us and we might hear directly from you.’

Salmān asked, ‘And who are you?’
He replied, ‘So-and-so, the son of so-and-so.’

Salmān said, ‘I have heard good reports about you: that you hasten in the path of Allah, fight the enemy, and serve the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Were you to be lacking in even one of these traits, you would be among those people the Messenger of Allah ﷺ described to us.’

They said that the man was later found slain among the contingent at Nahrawān⟮2⟯.

Hadith Nine: On the authority of Sahl ibn Ḥunaif al-Anṣārī

Imām Aḥmad⟮3⟯ said: Abū al-Naḍr related to us; Ḥizām ibn Ismāʿīl al-ʿĀmirī related to us; from Abū Isḥāq al-Shaybānī; from Yusair⟮4⟯ ibn ʿAmr, who said: I entered upon Sahl ibn Ḥunaif [al-Anṣārī] and asked, ‘Tell me what you heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ concerning the Ḥarūriyyah.’

He replied, ‘I will recount exactly what I heard from the Prophet ﷺ, adding nothing to it. I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say:

“A people will emerge from here”—and he pointed with his hand toward Iraq—“They will recite the Quran, yet it will not go beyond their throats; they will dart out of the religion just as an arrow passes straight through its game.”’

I asked, ‘Did he mention any distinguishing mark for them?’
He replied, ‘That is all I heard; I can add nothing [more].’

The two Shaykhs also recorded it in their Ṣaḥīḥ collections⟮5⟯ through the narration of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ziyād.

Muslim⟮6⟯ transmitted it through ʿAlī ibn Mushir and al-ʿAwām ibn Ḥawshab, and al-Nasāʾī⟮7⟯ through Muḥammad ibn Faḍīl—all of them from Abū Isḥāq al-Shaybānī with this chain.

Muslim⟮8⟯ also related: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn Mushir narrated to us; from al-Shaybānī; from Yusair ibn ʿAmr, who said: I asked Sahl ibn Ḥunaif, ‘Did you hear the Messenger of Allah ﷺ mention the Khārijites?’ He answered—pointing with his hand toward the east—

‘A people who recite the Quran with their tongues, yet it does not pass beyond their collarbones; they will shoot out of the religion just as an arrow shoots through its prey.’