He also said that God’s messenger led them in prayer one day, then faced them and gave them a lengthy exhortation at which their eyes shed tears and their hearts were afraid. A man said, “Messenger of God, it seems as if this were a farewell exhortation, so give us an injunction.” He then said, “I enjoin you to fear God, and to hear and obey even if it be an Abyssinian slave, for those of you .who live after me will see great disagreement. You must therefore follow my sunna and that of the rightly guided Caliphs. Hold to it and stick fast to it. 1 Avoid novelties, for every novelty is an innovation, and every innovation is error.”
Ahmad, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah transmitted it, but the last two did not mention the prayer.
1 Lit. : Bite on it with the molar teeth.
Rabi'a al-Jurashi said: A heavenly visitant came to God’s prophet, and he was told to let his eye sleep, his ear hear, and his heart understand. He said, “My eyes then slept, my ears heard, and my heart understood, and I…
Abu Rafi‘ reported God’s messenger as saying, “Let me not find one of you reclining on his couch when he hears something regard which I have commanded or forbidden and saying, ‘I do not know, we found in God’s Book we ha…
Al-Miqdam b. Ma'dikarib reported God’s messenger as saying, “I have indeed been brought the Qur’an and something like it along with it, yet the time is coming when a man replete on his couch will say, ‘Keep to this Qur’a…
Al-Irbad b. Sariya declared that God’s messenger got up and said, “Does any of you, while reclining on his couch, imagine that God has prohibited only what is to be found in the Qur’an? By God, I have commanded, exhorted…
‘Abdallah b. Mas'ud told how God’s messenger drew a line for them and then said, “This is God’s path.” Thereafter he drew several lines on his right and left and said, “These are paths on each of which there is a devil w…
‘Abdallah b. ‘Amr reported God’s messenger as saying, “None of you is a believer till his desire follows what I have brought.”
He transmitted it in Sharh al-sunna ; and an-Nawawi said in his Arba’in, “This is a sound tra…