2174 — “Had I not embraced it, it would have continued to yearn until the Day of Resurrection.” That is, the tree trunk against which he used to deliver sermons.

Al-Bukhārī narrated it in al-Tārīkh (4/1/26), al-Dārimī (1/18–19 and 367), Ibn Mājah (1/433), Aḥmad (1/249, 266–267, and 363), al-Baghawī in Ḥadīth Hudbah ibn ʿAmmār (1/257–258), and al-Ḍiyāʾ in al-Mukhtārah (1/508), through several routes from Ḥammād ibn Salamah: from ʿAmmār ibn Abī ʿAmmār, from Ibn ʿAbbās; and from Thābit, from Anas: “The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, used to deliver sermons beside a tree trunk. When he began using the minbar, he went to it, and the trunk yearned. So he came to it and embraced it, whereupon it became still.” He then said … and mentioned the above.

I say: This chain is authentic according to Muslim’s criteria through both routes. Ibn Saʿd also narrated it through the first route in al-Ṭabaqāt (1/252), as did al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr (3/179/1) and Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī in al-Laṭāʾif (folio 78/2). Ḥammād also narrated it from Ḥabīb al-Shahīd, from al-Ḥasan, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, as a mursal report. Al-Baghawī also narrated it.

Al-Ṣaʿq corroborated him, saying: “I heard al-Ḥasan say”—and he related it more fully than this. Al-Dārimī narrated it. Mubārak ibn Fuḍālah differed from him, narrating it from al-Ḥasan, from Anas ibn Mālik, in abridged form. Abū Yaʿlā narrated it in his Musnad (5/142/2756), as did Ibn Khuzaymah in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1776) and Ibn Ḥibbān as well (574—Mawārid). Then al-Dārimī, al-Tirmidhī (3631)—who declared it authentic—and Ibn Khuzaymah in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1777) narrated it through another route, from ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār: Isḥāq ibn Abī Ṭalḥah narrated to us; Anas