so they went up to him and said, “What are you doing?” He replied, “You complain that I bother you, yet I must have water. If they let the people below carry out their plan, everyone will perish; but if they stop them, they will be saved and will save all the others.”

This was narrated by al-Bukhari (2/111, 164), al-Tirmidhi (2/26), al-Bayhaqi (10/288), and Ahmad (4/268, 270, 273) through the chain of Zakariyya ibn Abī Zāʾidah and al-Aʿmash, from al-Shaʿbi, from al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, from the Prophet ﷺ, who related the parable. Al-Tirmidhi said, “A ḥadīth that is hasan ṣaḥīḥ.”

Mujālid ibn Saʿīd also reported it for Ahmad (4/273); he is weak, and his version adds: “…like three men who boarded a ship, and one of them was allotted the lower, rougher part….”

Others gave supporting routes. Ibn al-Mubārak said in al-Zāhid (fol. 219/2): “Al-Ajlah narrated to us from al-Shaʿbi,” with this wording:

“Some people boarded a ship and drew lots for their places; each man received a spot. One of them took an axe and started hacking away at his space. They asked, ‘What are you doing?’ He replied, ‘It is my place; I may do with it whatever I wish! If they restrain him, they will be saved and so will he; but if they leave him alone, he will drown and they will drown. So restrain your fools before you all perish.’”

Ibn al-Mubārak also recorded it in his Kitāb al-Ḥadīth (2/107/2), and through his channel Ibn Abī al-Dunyā in al-Amr bi’l-Maʿrūf (fol. 27/2).

However, this al-Ajlah—ʿAbd Allah Abū Ḥujayyah al-Kindī—is weak, especially in what he transmits from al-Shaʿbi.