to this man in the Hijaz, so that they may bring me news of him.” Bādhān therefore sent a chamberlain and another man, along with a letter. They arrived in Medina and delivered Bādhān’s letter to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, smiled, invited them both to Islam while their limbs trembled, and said, “Leave me for the rest of this day, then come to me tomorrow, and I shall tell you what I intend.” They came to him the following day, and he said to them … then he mentioned it.
Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Aslamī, who is al-Wāqidī, is abandoned. However, the hadith cited in the heading is established, since it has come through several routes. Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī reported it in al-Tārīkh (2, 654) from Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb as a mursal report.
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr mentioned in al-Bidāyah (4 / 270) that al-Bayhaqī narrated—perhaps he meant in al-Dalāʾil—from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from Ḥumayd, from al-Ḥasan, from Abū Bakrah, that a man from Persia came to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Indeed, my Lord killed your lord last night.”
Al-Bayhaqī said: It is also related in the hadith of Diḥyah ibn Khalīfah that, when he returned from Caesar, he found Khosrow’s envoys with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. Khosrow had sent a threatening message to the governor of Sana’a, saying to him: “Will you not rid me of the matter of a man who has appeared in your land and calls me to his religion? Deal with him for me, or I will take action against you.” So he sent to him, and the Prophet said to his envoys: “Tell him that my Lord has killed his lord tonight.” They found it to be as he had said.
He said: Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind also narrated something similar from ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr mentioned all of this, but despite his great retention, he overlooked the fact that Imam Aḥmad recorded the hadith of Abū Bakrah (5 / 43): Aswad ibn ʿĀmir narrated to us; Ḥammād ibn Salamah narrated to us, through this chain. Its chain of transmission meets Muslim’s criteria, and it has no hidden defect, apart from the possible concern that al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī used an ambiguous transmission formula due to concealment in transmission. However, in another narration recorded by Aḥmad (5 / 51), he explicitly stated direct transmission. Thus, the hadith is authentic, and all praise is due to Allah Most High.
Perhaps it was because of the corroborating evidence and transmission routes for this hadith that we have mentioned that al-Ḥāfiẓ did not comment on it in Fatḥ al-Bārī (8 / 96).