The grievance of the camels and the nugget of gold

Al-Bayhaqi said: Abu l-Husayn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn al-Fadl al-Qattan informed us: Abu Sahl ibn Ziyad al-Qattan informed us: Abu Ishaq Isma’il ibn Ishaq the judge narrated to us: Isma’il ibn Abi Uways narrated to us: my brother related to me, from Sulayman ibn Bilal, from Sa’d ibn Ishaq ibn Ka’b, from Ujra, from his aunt Zaynab bint Ka’b ibn Ujra, from Abu Sa’id al-Khudri, that he said: the Messenger of Allah sent Ali ibn Abi Talib to Yemen. Abu Sa’id said: I was among those who went out with him, and when he took some camels of the charity we asked him that we might ride some of it and rest our camels, and we had seen a weakness in our camels; he refused us and said: you have in it only a share as the Muslims have. When Ali finished and departed from Yemen returning,

he appointed over us a man and hastened himself and caught the Hajj. When he completed his Hajj the Prophet said to him: ’return to your companions until you arrive before them.’ Abu Sa’id said: we had asked the one he appointed why Ali had forbidden it to us, and he did so; and when he perceived in the camels of the charity that they had been ridden and saw the rider’s trace, he blamed the one he appointed and reproached him. I said: Allah has indeed a bond upon me, that if I reach Medina I shall mention to the Messenger of Allah and inform him what we met of harshness and straitening. When we reached Medina I went in the morning to the Messenger of Allah intending to do what I had sworn, and I met Abu Bakr coming out from the Messenger of Allah; when he saw me he stood with me and welcomed me,

and questioned me and I questioned him, and he said: when did you arrive? I said: I arrived yesterday. He returned with me to the Messenger of Allah, entered and said: this is Sa’d ibn Malik son of the martyr. He said: permit him.

I entered and greeted the Messenger of Allah and he greeted me, and he turned to me and asked me of myself and my family, making the question far-reaching, and I said: O Messenger of Allah, what we met from Ali of harshness, evil company and straitening! The Messenger of Allah grew angry, and I went on enumerating what we met from him until I was in the middle of my speech, when the Messenger of Allah struck my thigh, and I was near him, and said: ’O Sa’d ibn Malik son of the martyr, desist from part of your speech against your brother Ali, for by Allah I have known him hardest in the path of Allah.’ I said to myself: may your mother lose her son, O Sa’d ibn Malik! See me now in what he dislikes, and I know not; by Allah I shall never mention him in evil, secretly or openly. This is a good chain upon the condition of an-Nasa’i, and none of the authors of the six books reports it.

Yunus said, from Muhammad ibn Ishaq: Yahya ibn Abdallah ibn Abi Amra related to me, from Yazid ibn Talha ibn Yazid ibn Rukana, who said: the army of Ali ibn Abi Talib, those who were with him in Yemen, found their grievance: when they returned he left them a man and hastened to the Messenger of Allah; the man acted deliberately and clothed every man in a robe. When they drew near Ali came out to meet them and they wore the robes.

Ali said: what is this? They said: so-and-so clothed us. He said: what prompted you to this before you arrived to the Messenger of Allah that he might do as he wills? And he stripped the robes from them.

When they arrived to the Messenger of Allah they complained of him for that, and they had made peace with the Messenger of Allah, and Ali had been sent only for a fixed tribute. I say: this account is nearer than al-Bayhaqi’s, for Ali preceded them because of the Hajj, and took with him the sacrificial offering, and entered ihram like the Prophet’s, and he commanded him to remain in ihram; and in al-Bara ibn Azib’s version he said: I watered the offering and paired it.

The point is that when the talk multiplied upon Ali from that army, because of his forbidding them use of the camels of the charity and his recovering from them the robes their deputy had granted them, and Ali was excused in what he did, yet the talk spread in the gatherings; and for that: and Allah knows best: when the Messenger of Allah returned from his pilgrimage, discharged from its rites and returned to Medina, passing by Ghadir Khumm, he stood among the people as preacher and cleared the slate of Ali, raised his worth and drew attention to his merit, to remove what had lodged in the souls of many; and this will come in detail at its place, Allah willing, and in him is trust. Al-Bukhari said: Qutayba narrated to us: Abd al-Wahid narrated to us, from Umara ibn al-Qa’qa’ ibn Shubruma: Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi Nu’m related to me: I heard Abu Sa’id al-Khudri say:

Ali ibn Abi Talib sent to the Prophet from Yemen a gold nugget in a raw hide, not purged of its dust. He divided it among four: Uyayna ibn Badr, al-Aqra’ ibn Habis, Zayd al-Khayl, and the fourth being either Alqama, meaning ibn Ulatha, or Amir ibn at-Tufayl. A man of his companions said: we were more deserving of this than these. That reached the Prophet and he said: ’do you not trust me, and I am the trustee of him who is in heaven, when the news of heaven comes to me morning and evening?’ A man rose, deep-set of eye, protruding of cheeks, high of forehead, thick of beard, shaven of head, with the izar tucked up, and said: O Messenger of Allah, fear Allah.

He said: ’woe to you: am I not the most worthy of the people that Allah be feared?’ Then the man turned away. Khalid ibn al-Walid said: O Messenger of Allah, shall I not strike his neck? He said: ’no; perhaps he prays.’ Khalid said: how many who pray say with their tongue what is not in their heart. The Messenger of Allah said: ’I was not commanded to sift the hearts of the people, nor to split their bellies.’ Then he looked at him as he turned away and said: ’from the loin of this man a people will come reciting the Book of Allah wet, it passing not their throats; they pass through the religion as the arrow passes through the quarry.

I think he said: were I to reach them I would surely slay them the slaying of Thamud.’ Al-Bukhari reported it in other places of his book, and Muslim in the chapter of zakat of his Sahih by multiple routes, to Umara ibn al-Qa’qa’, likewise.