1829 – ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; Hudbah ibn Khalid narrated to us; Hammad ibn Salamah narrated to us, from Salamah, from Thabit and Humayd, from Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Muzani, who said:

“There was, among those who lived before you, a king who had defiantly rebelled against his Lord—exalted is He. The Muslims marched against him, seized him alive, and then asked, ‘In what manner shall we execute him?’ They unanimously agreed to place him inside a huge cauldron, heap a great fire beneath it, and not kill him outright until he had tasted the torment. They did as they had agreed.

Thereupon he began calling on his idols one by one: ‘O So-and-so, by the worship I devoted to you, the prayers I offered to you, and the way I would anoint your face, deliver me from this plight!’ When he saw that they could not help him in the least, he lifted his head toward the sky and said, lā ilāha illā Allāh (there is no god but Allah), and he called upon Allah with complete sincerity. Allah sent down upon him a torrential rain from the sky that extinguished the fire. Then a wind came, lifted the cauldron, and it began to whirl between heaven and earth while he kept repeating, lā ilāha illā Allāh.

Allah cast him down among a people who did not worship Allah—exalted is He—while he was still saying, lā ilāha illā Allāh. They pulled him out and said, ‘Alas for you! What has happened to you?’ He replied, ‘I am the king of such-and-such a tribe,’ and he related the entire story, saying, ‘Thus was my plight and thus was my capture.’ So they believed.”