A platter of food was once placed before the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, but he declined to eat from it. Zayd then said, “I will not eat anything that you slaughter upon your stone altars. I only eat what has been slaughtered with the name of Allah pronounced over it.” Zayd ibn ʿAmr would regularly reproach Quraysh for their sacrifices, saying, “The sheep is Allah’s creation. He sends down water for it from the sky and causes vegetation to grow for it from the earth, yet you slaughter it without mentioning Allah’s name!”—a censure he voiced out of deep reverence for the matter.
Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah relates: Sālim ibn ʿAbd Allāh narrated to me—and I know of no one from whom he heard it except Ibn ʿUmar—that Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl travelled to Syria seeking true religion. There he met a Jewish scholar and asked him about Judaism, saying, “Perhaps I might adopt your faith; inform me about it.” The scholar replied, “You will never be on our religion unless you take your share of Allah’s wrath.” Zayd said, “It is precisely from Allah’s wrath that I flee. I can carry none of it, nor have the power to do so. Can you guide me to something else?” The man answered, “I know of nothing other than that you become a ḥanīf.”
Zayd asked, “What is a ḥanīf?” He replied, “The religion of Abraham—he was neither Jew nor Christian, and he worshipped none but Allah.”
Zayd then left and encountered a Christian scholar, to whom he posed the same question. The scholar said, “You will not be on our religion unless you take your share of Allah’s curse.” Zayd responded, “I flee only from Allah’s curse. I can bear none of His curse or His wrath, ever, nor am I able. Can you direct me to something else?” The scholar said, “I know of nothing except that you be a ḥanīf.” Zayd asked again, “What is a ḥanīf?” He replied, “The religion of Abraham; he was neither Jew nor Christian and worshipped Allah alone.”
When Zayd heard them speak so unanimously about Abraham, he departed. Once outside, he raised his hands and said, “O Allah, I bear witness before You that I am upon the religion of Abraham.”
Al-Layth reports: Hishām ibn ʿUrwah wrote to me from his father, who narrated from Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr: “I saw Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl standing with his back against the Kaʿbah, proclaiming, ‘People of Quraysh, by Allah, none of you is upon the religion of Abraham except me!’ He used to save newborn girls who were to be buried alive. Whenever a man intended to kill his daughter, Zayd would say, ‘Do not kill her; I will shoulder her upkeep.’ He would take the child, and when she reached an age of awareness he would say to her father, ‘If you wish, I will return her to you; if you wish, I will continue to support her.’
This concludes what al-Bukhārī narrated. The last ḥadīth has also been transmitted with a complete chain by the ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir through the route of Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd, from ʿĪsā ibn