—a venerable man of considerable stature. It is said that his given name was Masrūḥ, yet he came to be called Abū Bakrah because, on the day of Ṭāʾif, he lowered himself down on a bucket-rope (bukrah); the Messenger of Allah ﷺ then set him free, as he freed everyone from their freedmen who descended that day.

His mother was Sumayyah, the mother of Ziyād as well. Abū Bakrah and his brother Ziyād, together with Shibl (1) ibn Maʿbad and Nāfiʿ ibn al-Ḥārith, testified that al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah had committed adultery. When Ziyād hesitated in his testimony, ʿUmar ordered the remaining three to be flogged, then called them to repent. They all recanted except Abū Bakrah, who remained firm in his charge. [Al-Mughīrah protested, “Commander of the Believers, grant me justice against this slave!” ʿUmar rebuked him: “Be quiet! Had the full testimony been completed, I would have stoned you with your own stones.”] (2) Abū Bakrah was the most upright of those witnesses.

He kept completely aloof from the civil strife, taking no part in any of it. He died in this same year—though some say a year earlier, others a year later—and the funeral prayer was led by Abū Barzah al-Aslamī, between whom and Abū Bakrah the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had established brotherhood.

In this year also passed away the Mother of the Believers Maymūnah bint al-Ḥārith al-Hilālīyyah (3). The Messenger of Allah ﷺ had married her during the ʿUmrat al-Qaḍāʾ (4) in the year 7 AH. Ibn ʿAbbās—whose mother Umm al-Faḍl was Maymūnah’s sister—said, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ married her while he was in the state of iḥrām” (5). Yet in her own report recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (6) she states that both of them were outside iḥrām, and the majority of scholars give precedence to her statement over that of Ibn ʿAbbās.