This narration was collected by Aḥmad and by the compilers of the Sunan, and was declared authentic by al-Tirmidhī and others (1).
It is likewise reported that the Prophet ﷺ “would supplicate for the front row three times and for the second row once” (2).
Al-ʿIrbaḍ had reached advanced old age and desired that Allah should take him to Himself. He would pray, “O Allah, my years have grown many and my bones have become weak, so take me back to You” (3). He transmitted a number of ḥadiths.
Abū Thaʿlabah al-Khushanī (4) was an eminent Companion. He witnessed the Pledge of al-Riḍwān and fought at Ḥunayn. He later settled in the Levant at Dāriyā [west of Damascus in the direction of the qiblah]; others said he lived at Bilāṭ, a village east of Damascus—Allah knows best.
There is much disagreement about his and his father’s names; the most common view is that he was Jarthūm ibn Nāshir.
He narrated ḥadiths from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ [and from a number of Companions], and a group of Successors related from him, among them Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, Makḥūl al-Shāmī, Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī, and Abū Qilābah al-Jarmī. He would often sit with Kaʿb al-Aḥbār.
Every night he would go out, gaze at the sky in contemplation, then return home and prostrate to Allah—Exalted is He. He used to say, “I hope that Allah will not make me struggle for breath at death as I see you struggling.”
One night, while he was praying during the night, his soul was taken as he was in prostration. His daughter dreamed that her father had died; she awoke frightened and asked her mother, “Where is my father?” Her mother replied, “He is in his prayer spot.” She called him but he did not answer, so she went to him and moved him onto his side—there he was, dead; may Allah have mercy on him (5).
Abū ʿUbaydah, Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, Khalīfah, and others said that he died in 75 AH, while others held that his death was at the very beginning of Muʿāwiyah’s rule—Allah knows best.
Also among those who died this year was al-Aswad ibn Yazīd (6), a close companion of Ibn Masʿūd [that is, al-Aswad ibn Yazīd al-Nakhaʿī, one of the foremost Successors and among…]