English Translation

Muhammad ibn Abi Adi narrated to us, from Ibn Awn, from Muhammad ibn Sirin, from Ibn Hudhayfah, who said: I used to narrate a hadith about Adi ibn Hatim, so I said, "This Adi is in a part of Kufa; if only I went to him, so that I would be the one who heard it from him myself." So I went to him and said, "I have been narrating a hadith about you, and I wanted to be the one who hears it from you." He said: When Allah, Mighty and Sublime, sent the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, I fled from him until I was in the farthest land of the Muslims, adjoining Byzantium. Then I disliked the place I was in until I disliked it more than the place I had come from. I said, "I will surely go to this man; by Allah, if he is truthful, I will hear from him, and if he is a liar, it will not harm me." So I went to him, and the people looked up at me eagerly and said, "Adi ibn Hatim! Adi ibn Hatim!" — he said, I think, three times. He said to me, "O Adi ibn Hatim, accept Islam and you will be safe." I said, "I belong to a religion." He said, "O Adi ibn Hatim, accept Islam and you will be safe." I said, "I belong to a religion" — he said it three times. He said, "I know your religion better than you do." I said, "You know my religion better than I do?" He said, "Yes." He said, "Are you not the chief of your people?" I said, "Yes indeed." He said — Muhammad then mentioned the Rakusiyyah, a word he sought to settle on but then left off — "Indeed the mirba’ (the chief’s quarter-share of spoils) is not lawful in your religion." When he said that, something in me was humbled a little. He said, "And I see that what holds you back is a poverty you observe around me, and that the people are united against us as one party. Do you know the location of al-Hirah?" I said, "I have heard of it but have not been there." He said, "The traveling woman will soon set out from it without any escort, until she circles" — Yazid ibn Harun said "without fear," and Yunus said, on the authority of Hammad, "unmolested" — then he returned to the hadith of Adi ibn Hatim — "until she circumambulates the Ka’bah; and the treasures of Chosroes son of Hormizd will soon be opened." I said, "Chosroes son of Hormizd?" He said, "Chosroes son of Hormizd." I said, "Chosroes son of Hormizd?" He said, "Chosroes son of Hormizd" — three times — "and a man will soon go about seeking someone to accept his charity from him, and find no one." He said: I have indeed seen two of these: I have seen the traveling woman go out from al-Hirah without any escort until she circumambulated the Ka’bah, and I was among the cavalry that raided — Yunus said, on the authority of Hammad, "that raided the capital cities" — and by Allah, the third will surely come to pass, for it is indeed the word of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, that he told me.