Muslim (1) records the first of these two chains through ʿAbd al-Razāq.

Imām Aḥmad likewise transmits it via Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from ʿAmmār ibn Abī ʿAmmār, from Abū Hurayrah—raised to the Prophet—and it will be cited below (2).

Imām Aḥmad said: “Al-Ḥasan related to us; Ibn Luhayʿah related to us; Abū Yūnus—that is, Salīm ibn Jubayr—related to us from Abū Hurayrah.”

Imām Aḥmad added: “He did not raise it.”

[Abu Hurayrah] said: “The Angel of Death came to Moses—peace be upon him—and said, ‘Respond to your Lord.’ Moses struck the Angel’s eye and put it out. The angel returned to Allah—glorified and exalted is He—and said, ‘You have sent me to a servant who does not wish to die, and he has gouged out my eye.’ Allah restored his eye and said, ‘Go back to My servant and say to him: Is it life that you desire? If you wish to live, place your hand on the back of an ox; for every hair your hand covers you will be granted one year of life.’ He asked, ‘And then what?’ He replied, ‘Then death.’ He said, ‘So let it be now, my Lord, and let it be soon.’”

Aḥmad alone narrates this wording, and it is mawqūf (3).

Ibn Ḥibbān also reports it in his Ṣaḥīḥ (4) through Maʿmar, from Ibn Ṭāwūs, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah. Maʿmar said, “Someone who heard al-Ḥasan relate it from the Messenger of Allah informed me,” and he mentioned the ḥadīth. Ibn Ḥibbān then found the report problematic and answered—summarizing—as follows:

When the Angel of Death spoke to him, Moses did not recognize him, for the angel had come in a form unfamiliar to him—just as Gabriel once came in the guise of a Bedouin, and as the angels appeared to Abraham and Lot as young men, whom neither initially recognized. Likewise Moses, perhaps for that very reason, failed to recognize him and struck him, gouging out his eye, because he had entered his house without permission. This accords with our Sacred Law, which permits one to put out the eye of anyone who looks at you in your home without leave (5).

He then cited the ḥadīth through ʿAbd al-Razāq, from Maʿmar, from Hammām, from Abū Hurayrah, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared: “The Angel of Death came to Moses to seize his soul and said to him, ‘Respond to your Lord.’ Moses struck the Angel of Death on the eye and gouged it out,” and he mentioned the remainder of the report as al-Bukhārī has indicated.

Afterward he interpreted the incident to mean that, when Moses raised his hand to strike him, the angel said, “Respond to your Lord.” Yet this interpretation does not fit the wording, for the phrase “Respond to your Lord” is followed immediately by the striking. Had he retained the first explanation, it would have been more coherent: as though Moses did not recognize him in that form or accept his words, since at that moment he was not certain the visitor was an honored angel. Moreover, Moses still hoped to see many long-awaited events realized in his lifetime: that his people would emerge from the wilderness and enter the Holy Land, and it had already been determined in Allah’s decree (6)