Second ḥadith: Anas b. Mālik reported: “Some people from Yemen came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, ‘Send with us a man who will teach us the sunnah and Islam.’ He took hold of Abū ʿUbayda’s hand and said, ‘This is the trustworthy man of this community.’” Muslim transmitted it (7/29), and al-Bukhārī recorded it in abridged form.

I say: Had a solitary report not constituted binding proof, the Prophet ﷺ would not have dispatched Abū ʿUbayda to them on his own. The same reasoning applies to his sending, at various times or to different regions, other Companions—such as ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, Muʿādh b. Jabal, and Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī—whose missions and narrations are found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere. Beyond any doubt, part of what these emissaries taught the people was matters of creed; if their single, uncorroborated report had not been a valid proof against those audiences, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would never have sent them out individually, for such purposelessness is inconceivable of him.

This is exactly what Imām al-Shāfiʿī—may Allah have mercy on him—meant in al-Risālah (p. 412): “The Prophet ﷺ never dispatches anyone on his behalf unless the proof obliging those to whom he is sent—and obliging them to accept his report from the Messenger of Allah—is already in place. He was capable of going to them himself and addressing them directly, or of sending a group; yet he sent a single man whom they knew for his truthfulness.”

Third ḥadith: ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar said, “While the people were performing the dawn prayer in Qubāʾ, someone came to them and said, ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ has had Qur’an revealed to him tonight, and he has been commanded to face…’”