Mujālid transmitted from al-Shaʿbī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Zayd ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, who said:

Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl used to say, “I examined Judaism and Christianity and found them both distasteful. I remained in Syria and its surroundings until I came to a monk in his hermitage. I told him how I had become a stranger to my people and how I loathed idol-worship, Judaism, and Christianity.”

The monk replied, “It appears that you seek the religion of Abraham, O brother of the Meccans. You are looking for a faith that no one on earth now professes. It is the religion of your forefather Abraham: he was a ḥanīf, neither Jew nor Christian. He prayed and prostrated toward the House that stands in your land. Return to your homeland, for Allah will soon raise up from among your own people, in your very land, a man who will bring the ḥanīfiyyah, the religion of Abraham; he will be the most honored of all creation in the sight of Allah.”

Yūnus related, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq:

Some of Zayd’s descendants told me that whenever Zayd entered the Kaʿbah he would say:

“Here I am—truly, truly—at Your service, in worship and humble bondage.
I seek the refuge that Abraham sought while he stood proclaiming:
‘My Lord, my nose is pressed to You in humble submission;
whatever burden You lay upon me, I shall bear.
I seek righteousness, not mere kinship;
the one who journeys is not like the one who only speaks.’”

Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī said:

Al-Masʿūdī told us, from Nufayl ibn Hishām ibn Saʿīd ibn Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl al-ʿAdawī, from his father, from his grandfather, that Zayd ibn ʿAmr and Waraqah ibn Nawfal set out in search of the true religion and came to a monk in Mosul.

The monk asked Zayd, “From where have you come, camel-rider?”
He replied, “From the House built by Abraham.”
“What are you seeking?” the monk asked.
“I seek the religion,” Zayd answered.
The monk said, “Go back, for it is about to appear in your own land.”

Waraqah thereupon embraced Christianity, while I”—meaning Zayd—“resolved to do the same but it did not sit well with me, so I returned, saying:

Here I am—truly, truly—at Your service, in worship and humble bondage;
I seek righteousness, not favoritism—can the migrant be like the one who merely speaks?
I believe in what Abraham believed.

He would also say: “My nose is pressed to You in humble submission; whatever burden You place upon me, I will bear,” and then fall down in prostration.

His son—Saʿīd ibn Zayd, one of the ten promised Paradise, may Allah be pleased with him—came and said, “O Messenger of Allah, my father was as you have seen and as has reached you; so ask forgiveness for him.” The Prophet responded, “Yes. He will be raised on the Day of Resurrection as a nation unto himself.”

It is also related that Zayd ibn ʿAmr once passed by the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, while he was with Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, both of them eating from a meal before them