is Ibn Salām among you?" He said: So he sent for them and asked, "What kind of man is ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām among you?" They said: "He is the best of us and the son of the best of us, our scholar and the son of our scholar, and the most knowledgeable among us." He said: "What would you say if he embraced Islam, would you accept it?" They said: "May Allāh protect him from that!" He said: Then Ibn Salām came out and said: "I bear witness that there is no deity but Allāh, and that Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allāh." They said: "He is the worst of us and the son of the worst of us, ignorant and the son of an ignorant." Then Ibn Salām said: "This is what I was afraid of!" I said: And this is a sound three-narrator chain according to the criteria of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. It was also recorded by al-Bukhārī (3329, 3938, 4480), al-Nasāʾī in "al-Sunan al-Kubrā" (5/338/9074), Ibn Ḥibbān (9/146/7117), and Aḥmad as well (3/189, 271) through other chains from Ḥumayd. It was corroborated by Thābit from Anas. It was recorded by Ibn Ḥibbān (7380). *

(As for what follows: By Allāh! I give to a man and [leave another], and the one I leave is more beloved to me than the one I give, but I give to some people because of what I see in their hearts of anxiety and distress, and I entrust others to what Allāh has placed in their hearts of wealth and goodness, among them is ʿAmr ibn Taghlib). It was recorded by al-Bukhārī (923, 3145, 7535), al-Ṭayālisī number (1170), and Aḥmad