Al-Bukhārī relates the story of al-Jaʿd’s encounter with Khālid in his Khalq Afʿāl al-ʿIbād (1); it is also recorded by Ibn Abī Ḥātim and by a number of other scholars who authored works on the Sunnah, such as al-Ṭabarānī, Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim, al-Bayhaqī, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad. The ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir likewise includes it in his Tārīkh (2). He notes that al-Jaʿd used to frequent Wahb ibn Munabbih, and that each time he went to see Wahb he would bathe, saying, “It gathers the mind.” Al-Jaʿd would ask Wahb about the attributes of Allah—Exalted is He—until one day Wahb said to him:

“Woe to you, O Jaʿd! Curb your questioning in this matter, for I fear you are among the doomed. Had Allah not told us in His Book that He has a hand, we would never have said so; that He has an eye, we would never have said so; that He has a self, we would never have said so; that He has hearing, we would never have said so.” He then mentioned further attributes such as knowledge and speech. Not long thereafter al-Jaʿd was crucified and put to death.

Ibn ʿAsākir also quotes, in al-Jaʿd’s biography, a poem he is said to have addressed to al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf—though others ascribe it to ʿImrān ibn Ḥiṭṭān (3):

A lion toward me, yet in war a timid ostrich,
A plump bird that bolts at the whistle of a whistler!
Why did you not meet Ghazālah upon the battlefield?
Instead, your heart was flitting beneath a bird’s two wings.

[Then came the year 125 AH.]

The ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bazzār (4) said: “Rizq Allāh ibn Mūsā told us, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Fudayk told us, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Zayd related from Muṣʿab ibn Muṣʿab, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father, who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

‘The adornment of this world will be removed in the year one hundred and twenty-five.’”

Abū Yaʿlā recorded the same report in his Musnad (5).