Signs & Miracles · Told Before It Happened

"A transgressing group will kill 'Ammar"

Handle with care. Do not use this to attack the companions or to take sides in the first civil war. Sunni scholarship deliberately restrains that discussion.

In short

• 1.While the mosque was being built, the Prophet said of 'Ammar: the transgressing party will kill him.
• 2.'Ammar died at Siffin in 37 AH, roughly thirty-five years later, fighting with Ali.
• 3.The prediction was so well known that the opposing camp had to argue about what it meant, rather than deny it existed.
• 4.Recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.

The claim being examined

The Prophet told 'Ammar ibn Yasir he would be killed by a transgressing party. Decades later he was killed at Siffin, fighting on Ali's side.

The Islamic position

It is in Bukhari and Muslim, and it was widely known before the event — both sides at Siffin argued about it afterwards.

Analysis

Recorded by al-Bukhari and Muslim from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri and others in the context of the building of the mosque in Madinah. The historical detail that gives this report its weight is that the hadith was in circulation before Siffin and was invoked at the battle itself, which the historical sources of both parties preserve. Sunni scholarship treats the events of the first civil war with restraint and does not use this report to condemn individuals.

From the Sunnah

Sources

Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari · Al-Dhahabi, Siyar A'lam al-Nubala · Sahih al-Bukhari 447; Sahih Muslim 2915

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