that the other had related it to me—from Murrah al-Bahzī, who said:

While we were with the Prophet of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, on one of the roads of Madinah, he said:

“How will you act amid a tribulation that erupts throughout the regions of the earth like the horns of cattle?”

They said, “What should we do, O Prophet of Allah?” He said:

“You must adhere to this man and his companions”—or, “Follow this man and his companions.”

He said: I hurried forward until I came alongside the man, and I said, “This one, O Prophet of Allah?” He replied, “This one.” It was ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, may Allah be pleased with him.

It was recorded by Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ (9/31/6875—al-Iḥsān)—one of the reports omitted from al-Mawārid—and by Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim in al-Sunnah (2/591/1296), through Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah—whose version appears in al-Muṣannaf (12/40–41)—as well as by Aḥmad (5/33 and 35), and also by al-Ṭabarānī (20/316/752), through Abū Bakr and others (751), all of them from Abū Usāmah, from Kahmas.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy and are among Muslim’s narrators, apart from Haramī ibn al-Ḥārith and Usāmah ibn Khuraym. They are two obscure Successors, known only through this narration of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shaqīq. Even so, Ibn Ḥibbān included them in his al-Thiqāt (4/44–45 and 5/514), in keeping with his usual criterion. Yet each of the two reinforces the other.

Abū Hilāl omitted them from the chain of transmission, narrating: from Qatādah, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shaqīq, from Murrah al-Bahzī, in a shortened report attributed to the Prophet. It includes: A man passed by with his head covered, and he said:

“This man and his companions will, on that day, be upon right guidance.” It was ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān.