nor does the wording of the ḥadīth in al-Bukhārī's "Adab" (1111) and Aḥmad's "Musnad" (2/444) present a problem: "If you meet the polytheists on the road, do not initiate the greeting of peace with them, and force them to the narrowest part of it." For it is anomalous in this wording, as al-Bukhārī also reported it (1103), as did Muslim and Aḥmad (2/266, 459) and others through different chains from Suhayl ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ with the wording mentioned above. Second: Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī said: "Abū Mūsá wrote to the monks, greeting them in his letter. It was said to him: 'Do you greet him while he is a disbeliever?' He said: 'He wrote to me and greeted me, so I returned the greeting to him.'" Al-Bukhārī reported it in his "Adab" (1101) with a good chain. The reasoning behind this is that the statement of the questioner, "Do you greet him while he is a disbeliever?" indicates that initiating the greeting of peace with a disbeliever was known among them to be generally impermissible, not specifically when meeting on the road. Therefore, the questioner objected to Abū Mūsá, and he acknowledged this without denying it, rather he excused himself by saying he did so in response, not as an initiator, thus confirming the intended meaning. Third: When the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) wrote to Heraclius, the King of Rome, while he was in Syria, he did not begin with the greeting of peace. Instead, he said: In the name of Allāh, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate: From Muḥammad, the servant of Allāh and His Messenger, to Heraclius, the great of Rome: Peace be upon those who follow guidance... It was reported by al-Bukhārī and Muslim and is in "al-Adab al-Mufrad" (1109). If the mentioned prohibition were specific to the road, he (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) would have initiated the Islamic greeting of peace with him and would not have said: "Peace be upon those who follow guidance."