So they laid me down without pressing or hurting me. One of them said to his companion, “Split open his chest.” One of them then moved toward my chest and split it open, as I saw it, without any blood or pain. He said to the other, “Remove malice and envy.” So they removed something like a blood clot and cast it away. He then said, “Put in compassion and mercy,” and there was something resembling what had been removed, like silver. Then he moved the big toe of my right foot and said, “Go forth in peace.” I returned endowed with tenderness toward the young and mercy toward the old.”

Al-Haythami said (8/223): “Its narrators are trustworthy; Ibn Hibban declared them trustworthy.”

I say: Ibn Hibban’s declarations of narrators’ reliability involve considerable leniency, as we have pointed out repeatedly. Therefore, al-Dhahabi mentioned in al-Mizan Muhammad ibn Mu‘adh ibn Muhammad ibn Ubayy ibn Ka‘b, narrating from his father, from his grandfather. Concerning his son Mu‘adh, Ibn al-Madini said: “We do not know this Muhammad, nor his father, nor his grandfather in transmission. This is an unknown chain of transmission.” Al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir (2/226) attributed this hadith of Ubayy only to Ibn ‘Asakir!

There is also the hadith of Anas on this subject: Gabriel came to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, while he was playing with some boys. He seized him and laid him down, opened his chest, and extracted his heart. He then removed from it a blood clot and said, “This was Satan’s portion of you.” Then he washed it in a golden basin with Zamzam water, stitched it up, and returned it to its place. The boys came running to his mother—meaning his foster mother—and said, “Muhammad has been killed!” They then found him with his complexion drained of color. Anas said: “I used to see the mark of those stitches on his chest.” Muslim recorded it (1/101–102), as did Ahmad (3/121, 149, and 288) and al-Ajurri in al-Shari‘ah, p. 437, through the route of Hammad ibn Salamah, who narrated to us from Thabit al-Bunani, from Anas. The first portion of the hadith has another supporting report, which follows.