and it may also have been an outpouring of joy, for a person sometimes weeps when he is delighted just as he does when he is saddened.

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—then cited several ḥadiths, all of which show weeping out of sorrow for what has passed. Among them is the narration of Umm Ayman, may Allah be pleased with her, when the two Companions Abū Bakr and ʿUmar visited her as the Prophet ﷺ used to do. When they arrived, she began to cry, so they asked, “What makes you weep? Do you not know that what is with Allah is better for His Messenger ﷺ?” She replied, “Indeed, I know that”—meaning, “I am fully aware”—“but I weep because revelation from heaven has come to an end.” Her words moved them both, and they began to weep along with her.

Likewise is the report of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, may Allah be pleased with him, when food was brought to him while he was fasting. A fasting person ordinarily longs for food, yet he remembered the condition of the earliest Companions—and he himself was one of the first Emigrants—but out of humility he said, “Musʿab ibn ʿUmayr was better than I am.”

Musʿab had been a young man in Mecca living with his wealthy parents, who dressed him in the finest clothes befitting youth and lavished great care upon him. When he embraced Islam they disowned and banished him. He emigrated with the Prophet ﷺ, joining the Emigrants, clad only in a patched garment after having once worn Mecca’s finest attire. He gave all that up, migrating for the sake of Allah and His Messenger.

The Prophet ﷺ entrusted him with the banner on the Day of Uḥud, where he was martyred, and with him was—