Daniyal in the pit of lions

Ibn Abi ad-Dunya related from one of our chains, from al-Ajlah al-Kindi, from Abdallah ibn Abi al-Houdhayl: Bukht Nassar trained two lions, threw them into a pit, then had Daniyal brought and threw him upon them. The lions did not attack him, and he remained as long as Allah willed. Then he felt the need human beings feel for food and drink: « Prepare food and drink for Daniyal. » « My Lord, I am in the holy land and Daniyal is in the land of Babylon, in the land of Iraq.

» « Prepare what I command you: We will send the one who will carry you and carry what you have prepared. » He did so. « Daniyal, O Daniyal. » « Who are you?

» « I am Armiya. » « What brought you? » « Your Lord sent me to you. » « And has my Lord remembered me?

» « Yes. » « Praise be to Allah who does not forget the one who mentions Him, praise be to Allah who does not disappoint the one who hopes in Him, praise be to Allah: the one who trusts in Him does not hand his affairs over to another, praise be to Allah who repays excellence with excellence, praise be to Allah who repays patience with deliverance, praise be to Allah who dispels our harm after our distress, praise be to Allah who is our trust when our deeds seem evil to us, praise be to Allah who is our hope when the means are cut off from us. »

Younous ibn Boukayr related, from Muhammad ibn Ishaq: « When we conquered Toustar, we found in the wealth of the house of al-Hourmouzan a couch upon which lay a dead man, with a mushaf at his head. We took the mushaf and carried it to Umar ibn al-Khattab, who called Ka'b to translate it into Arabic. I am the first of the Arabs to have read it: I read it just as I read you this Quran. » « What was in it?

» « Your sîras, your affairs, the modes of your speech, and what will happen hereafter. » « What did you do with the man? » « We dug thirteen separate graves by day, and when night came we buried him and leveled all the graves, so as to make his location unknown to the people, that they might not dig him up. » « What do you expect from him?

» « When the sky withheld rain from them, they would bring out his couch and rain would fall. » « Who do you think the man was? » « A man called Daniyal. » « How long have you found him dead?

» « Three hundred years. » « Has anything changed in him? » « Nothing but a few hairs of his nape: the flesh of the prophets is not consumed by the earth, nor do wild beasts eat it. » The hafiz says: it is an authentic chain to Abi al-'Aliya.

But if the date of his death is well established at three hundred years, he is not a prophet: he is a righteous man. The hadith related by al-Bukhari establishes that there is no prophet between Issa ibn Maryam and the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and the interval between the two is four hundred years, or six hundred years, or six hundred and twenty-six years according to the reports. The date of his death might go back to eight hundred years, which would be near the time of Daniyal, should it be Daniyal who corresponds to reality; but it could be another man, either a prophet or a righteous man. Suspicion draws near to Daniyal, because the king of the Persians had taken him and he remained there detained, as we have already mentioned.

It has been related by an authentic chain to Abi al-'Aliya that the length of his nose was a span, and from Anas ibn Malik, by a sound chain, a cubit. On this basis, it could be a man of the older prophets, before these periods: Allah knows best.

« Daniyal prayed to his Lord that the community of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) bury him. »

Related by Ibn Abi ad-Dunya, from Abi al-Ach'ath al-Ahmari

When Abou Moussa al-Ach'ari conquered Toustar, he found him in a coffin, his veins and pulse still beating. He said: « Whoever points out where Daniyal is, to him we give the good news of Paradise. » Hourqous came forward. Abou Moussa wrote to Umar informing him, and Umar wrote back: « Bury him, and give the good news to Hourqous: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) gave him the good news of Paradise. » The hafiz says: this report is mursal by this route, and its identification, if established, requires scrutiny: Allah knows best.

Anbasa ibn Sa'id, who was a scholar, related: Abou Moussa found with Daniyal a mushaf, a jar containing oud and dirhams, and his ring. « As for the mushaf, send it to us. As for the oud, send us some of it, and order the Muslims of your region to seek healing with it. Divide the dirhams among them.

As for the ring, We have granted it to you. » Ibn Abi ad-Dunya also related by another route that, when Abou Moussa found him and was told it was Daniyal, he embraced him, kissed him, wrote to Umar reporting his affair and the wealth placed with him, close to ten thousand dirhams: whoever came would borrow from it, and if he did not return it, he would fall ill. Umar ordered that he be washed with water and sidr, shrouded, buried, and that his grave be concealed from all; that the wealth be returned to the house of the treasury; and that the covering be carried to Umar, who granted him his ring. It is related from Abou Moussa that he ordered four prisoners to divert a river: they dug a grave in its midst, buried him in it, then he had the four prisoners put to the sword, so that the location of his grave was known to no one but Abou Moussa al-Ach'ari, may Allah be pleased with him.

Ibn Abi ad-Dunya said: Ibrahim ibn Abdallah narrated to me, Ahmad ibn Amr ibn as-Sarh narrated to us, Ibn Wahb narrated to us, from Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi az-Zinad, from his father: I saw in the hand of Abi Bourda ibn Abi Moussa al-Ach'ari a ring whose seal bore the engraving of two lions between which was a man whom they were licking. « This is the ring of that dead man whom the people of this town claimed was Daniyal, which Abou Moussa took the day he buried him. » Abou Moussa asked the scholars of that town about the engraving of the ring: « The king in whose reign Daniyal lived: the astrologers and men of knowledge came to him and told him that on such and such a night a boy would be born who would overrun his kingdom and ruin it. He swore: by Allah, that very night, no boy shall remain but I will kill him!

» So they took Daniyal, still a child, and threw him into the lions' pit: the lion and his lioness spent the night licking him without harming him. His mother came and found them licking him. Allah saved him through that until he attained what he attained. The scholars of that town said that Abou Moussa said that Daniyal engraved his image and that of the two lions licking him upon the seal of his ring, so as not to forget the grace of Allah upon him in that.

It is a hasan chain.