he rolled up his sleeves, drew his sword, and brandished it until his hand trembled. Then he said: O Prophet of Allāh! How can I kill a man who is prostrating, bearing witness that there is no deity but Allāh, and that Muḥammad is His servant and messenger? The Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) said: and he reminded him. I said: And this isnād is authentic according to the criteria of Muslim. Al-Haythamī said (6/225): "It was narrated by Aḥmad and al-Ṭabarānī without a clear explanation, and the men of Aḥmad are the men of the authentic collections." Al-Ḥāfiẓ attributed it in "al-Iṣābah" (2/174-175) to Muḥammad ibn Qudāmah and al-Ḥākim in "al-Mustadrak." I did not see it in that context, but he extracted (2/146) through two other chains from al-Shahhām with his isnād another ḥadīth about the Khawārij and authenticated it according to the criteria of Muslim. There is a supporting narration from Anas with a similar account. In it, the first man who stood up to kill him was Abū Bakr, and the second was ʿUmar, and it added: "The Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: Which of you will rise to this man and kill him? ʿAlī said: I will. The Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: You are for him if you catch him. So ʿAlī went but did not find him, and returned. The Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: Did you kill the man? He said: I did not know where he went on the earth. The Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) said: This is the first horn that emerged from my nation; if you had killed him, not two from my nation would have differed." It was narrated by Abū Yaʿlá (3/1019-1020) from the route of Yazīd al-Raqāshī who said: Anas ibn Mālik narrated it to me. I said: And its narrators are the narrators of Muslim, except for al-Raqāshī, who is weak. Mūsá ibn ʿUbaydah followed him: Hud ibn ʿAṭāʾ informed me from Anas with a similar account. In it, Abū Bakr said: I disliked killing him while he was praying, and I have been forbidden from striking those who pray. It was narrated by Abū Yaʿlá (3/1025-1026). I said: And Mūsá ibn ʿUbaydah is weak. There is a third route, narrated by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sharīk: My father narrated to us from al-Aʿmash from Abū Sufyān