“There are three registers before Allah …”—the hadith, with similar wording. I have traced it in The Weak Hadiths and al-Mishkāh (5133).

1928 — “The plague is martyrdom for my ummah: a stabbing inflicted by your enemies among the jinn; a swelling like that of camels, appearing in the armpits and the soft parts of the abdomen. Whoever dies from it dies a martyr; whoever remains there is [like] one stationed in the cause of Allah; and whoever flees from it is like one fleeing from the battlefield.”

Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Awsaṭ (no. 5661), as did Abū Bakr ibn Khallād in al-Fawāʾid (folio 36/1), whose wording is cited here, from Yūsuf ibn Maymūn, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿUmar, from ʿĀʾishah, attributed to the Prophet. Al-Ṭabarānī does not include the words, “Whoever dies from it dies a martyr.” Instead of, “Whoever remains there is like one stationed in the cause of Allah,” he says, “Whoever bears it patiently is like one striving in the cause of Allah.” He also said: “Yūsuf alone narrated it.”

I say: He is Yūsuf al-Makhzūmī, their client, the Kūfan dyer. He is weak, as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated in al-Taqrīb. I found another chain for Ibn Khallād’s addition with Abū Yaʿlā in his Musnad (3/1146), through Layth, from one of his companions, from ʿAṭāʾ, who said: ʿĀʾishah said, “The plague was mentioned, and I related that the Prophet said: ‘It is a stabbing that afflicts my ummah from their enemies among the jinn; a swelling like that of camels. Whoever remains through it is one stationed in the cause of Allah, whoever is afflicted by it is a martyr, and whoever flees from it is like one fleeing from the battlefield.’” Layth is Ibn Abī Sulaym, who is weak because he became confused in his later years. The rest of the hadith has numerous corroborating reports in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere, but without mention of the armpits and the soft parts of the abdomen,