the case with delaying the burial of members of his community, for he alone was protected from bodily decay, unlike us. Moreover, they delayed his burial until they had all prayed over him inside his house, so the matter took a long time. They also spent half the day uncertain as to his death, until Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq arrived from al-Sunḥ. This, then, was the reason for the delay.”
Note: This hadith of ʿĀʾishah, narrated by Aḥmad, meets al-Haythamī’s criteria for inclusion in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid, yet he did not include it. There are hadiths with a similar meaning narrated from Zayd ibn Khālid, Ṣuhayb ibn al-Nuʿmān, and al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī; he did include all three of them there (4/247). Al-Suyūṭī also cited it in al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr, from the narration of Aḥmad and Ibn Naṣr in Kitāb al-Ṣalāh. In al-Jāmiʿ al-Azhar, al-Manāwī attributed it to Aḥmad and added: “With a good chain of transmission.”
- “Take good care—take good care—of the Copts of Egypt, for you will conquer them, and they will be a source of strength and helpers for you in Allah’s cause.”
Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Kabīr (23/265/561). He said: Zakariyyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Sājī narrated to us; Bundār narrated to us. And through another route: Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Narsī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā narrated to us. Both said: Wahb ibn Jarīr narrated to us; my father narrated to us from Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb, from Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb, from Abū Salamah, from Umm Salamah, that at the time of his death, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, gave a final injunction, saying ... and he mentioned it.
I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission, and I know of no hidden defect in it. All its narrators are trustworthy and are among the narrators of the two Shaykhs, apart from al-Ṭabarānī’s two shaykhs. Yet the first of them, Zakariyyā al-Sājī, was a trustworthy hadith master whose biography appears in Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ. Al-Dhahabī said in al-Mīzān:
“One of the firmly established authorities; I know of no criticism whatsoever against him.”
His shaykh, Bundār, was named Muḥammad ibn Bashshār Abū Bakr, and Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā corroborated him,