- When this verse was revealed: “O you who believe, whoever among you turns back from his religion, Allah will bring forth a people whom He loves and who love Him,” the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, gestured toward Abu Musa, who was with him, and said:
“They are this man’s people.”
It was recorded by al-Hakim (2/313), Ibn Abi Shaybah in al-Musannaf (12/125), Ibn Saʿd in al-Tabaqat (4/107), Ibn Jarir in his Tafsir (6/183), and al-Tabarani in al-Muʿjam al-Kabir (17/371/1016), through several routes from Shuʿbah, from Simak ibn Harb, from ʿIyad al-Ashʿari, who said: … and he related it. Al-Hakim said:
“Authentic according to Muslim’s criteria.”
Al-Dhahabi concurred with him.
Al-Haythami said in al-Majmaʿ (7/16):
“It was narrated by al-Tabarani, and its narrators are the narrators of the authentic collections.”
I say: ʿIyad was Ibn ʿAmr al-Ashʿari. There is disagreement as to whether he was a Companion. Al-Hafiz said in al-Taqrib:
“A Companion with one hadith. Abu Hatim definitively held that his hadith is mursal, and that he saw Abu ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrah; he would therefore be a mukhadram, one who lived in both the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods.”
I say: It has also been reported with a continuous chain. Ibn Jarir said: Ibn al-Muthanna narrated to us; he said: Abu al-Walid narrated to us; he said: Shuʿbah narrated to us, from Simak ibn Harb, who said: I heard ʿIyad narrating from Abu Musa that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, recited this verse … the hadith with similar wording.
I say: This is an authentic chain with a continuous chain, for this Abu al-Walid—whose name was Hisham ibn