[The Report of Umm Ḥabībah]
Al-Bayhaqī said: Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā ibn Ibrāhīm al-Muzakkī narrated to us; Abū al-Ḥusayn (1) Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā al-Ādamī informed us; ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn al-Haytham narrated to us, [from Abū al-Yamān] (2); Shuʿayb narrated to us, from al-Zuhrī, from Anas, from Umm Ḥabībah, who related from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ that he said:
“I was shown what my community will face after me, including how some of them will shed the blood of others, and that saddened me. Yet this was a matter already decreed by Allah, just as it had been decreed for the nations before them. So I asked Him to entrust me with intercession for them, and He granted it.”
Al-Bayhaqī said: This chain of transmission is sound.
Mention of the believers’ intercession for their relatives
We have already cited the ḥadīth of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet ﷺ: “The first to intercede on the Day of Resurrection will be the prophets, then the martyrs, then the believers.” It was narrated by al-Bazzār and by Ibn Mājah, whose wording is: “Three groups will intercede on the Day of Resurrection: the prophets, then the scholars, then the martyrs” (3).
As for what al-Qurṭubī quoted in al-Tadhkira, through the route of Abū ʿAmr al-Sammāk: Yaḥyā ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Zibriqān narrated to us; he said: ʿAlī ibn ʿĀṣim narrated to us; Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ narrated to us, from Salamah ibn Kuhayl, from his father, from Abū az-Zaʿrāʾ, that Ibn Masʿūd said: “Your Prophet ﷺ will intercede as the fourth of four: Jibrīl, then Ibrāhīm, then Mūsā—or ʿĪsā (4)—then your Prophet; after that the angels, then the truthful, then the martyrs.”
Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī also transmitted it from Yaḥyā ibn Salamah ibn Kuhayl, from his father, with this same wording. Abū Dāwūd added: “No one after him will intercede more than he will; and that is the Praised Station about which Allah, Exalted is He, has said: ‘It may be that your Lord will raise you to a Praised Station’ (Al-Isrāʾ 17:79).” This ḥadīth is exceedingly odd, and Yaḥyā ibn Salamah ibn Kuhayl is weak (5).
In the Ṣaḥīḥ, through ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār from Abū Saʿīd, there is a marfūʿ report: “When the believers have crossed the Bridge and realize that they have been saved, you will never plead for a right more earnestly than they will then plead before their Lord—Exalted is He—on behalf of their brothers who are in the Fire. They will say: ‘Our Lord, our brothers used to pray with us, fast with us, perform ḥajj with us, and go forth in battle with us…’”