Al-Thawrī narrated—on the authority of Abū Bakr, from ʿIkrimah—that he said: “Al-Rass is a well into which they thrust their prophet,” that is, they buried him there.

Ibn Jurayj likewise reported from ʿIkrimah: “The People of al-Rass were in Falaj; they are the same community mentioned in Sūrat Yāsīn.” Qatādah, however, said, “Falaj is a village in the region of al-Yamāmah.”

I say: If they were indeed the Companions of Yāsīn, as ʿIkrimah claimed, then they were destroyed to the last man, for Allah the Exalted says about them:
“It was nothing but a single cry, and behold, they were extinguished” (Yāsīn 36:29).
Their story will be related after the foregoing peoples. If, as seems more likely, they were a different nation, they too were obliterated and wiped out. In either case, Ibn Jarīr’s assertion is untenable.

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Naqqāsh recounts that the People of al-Rass possessed a well that quenched their thirst and irrigated their entire land. They also had a righteous king of commendable character. When he died they mourned him deeply. A few days later Satan appeared to them in the king’s likeness and said, “I have not died; I merely absented myself to see how you would act.” They rejoiced greatly. He ordered that a curtain be set up between them and him and announced that he would never die. Most of them believed him, fell into temptation, and worshiped him. Allah therefore sent a prophet to them who declared that this was Satan speaking from behind the curtain, forbade them to worship him, and commanded them to worship Allah alone with no partner.

Al-Suhaylī says that revelation came to this prophet in his sleep and that his name was Ḥanẓalah ibn Ṣafwān. The people attacked him, slew him, and cast him into the well. Its water then receded; they suffered thirst after abundance, their trees withered, their produce ceased, and their dwellings were ruined. Companionship gave way to loneliness, unity to estrangement, until they all perished. Jinn and wild beasts inhabited their ruins; nothing was heard in those lands but the eerie rustling of jinn, the roaring of lions, and the howling of hyenas.

As for the report transmitted by Ibn Jarīr through Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd, from Salamah, from Ibn Isḥāq, from Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb al-Quraẓī, he said that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) declared: “The first person to enter Paradise on the Day of Resurrection will be a black servant.” The reason is that Allah, Exalted is He, sent a prophet to a certain town, but none of its inhabitants believed in him except that black man.

The townspeople then attacked the prophet, dug a well for him, cast him into it, and covered it with an enormous stone. The servant would go out, gather firewood on his back, sell it, and buy food and drink. He would then come to the well, lift the stone—with Allah’s help—lower the provisions to the prophet, and replace the stone as it had been.

He continued in this manner for as long as Allah willed. One day he went out to gather wood as usual, bundled it, and, just as he was about to shoulder it, he grew drowsy and lay down to sleep. Allah caused him to slumber for seven years. He awoke, stretched, rolled over, lay down again, and Allah caused him to sleep another seven years. When he finally rose, he took up his bundle, thinking he had slept only an hour of the day. He returned to the town, sold his firewood, bought food and drink as was his custom, and then made his way