Musaylimah

And then there was the delegation of Banū Ḥanīfah, which included a man called Musaylimah. Ibn ʿAbbās says (al-Bukhārī 4373) that Musaylimah the liar came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and he was saying: if Muḥammad appoints me to lead after him, I will follow him. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) came to him, along with Thābit ibn Qays ibn Shammās, and the Messenger of Allah had in his hand a piece of palm branch. And then he said to Musaylimah, who was among his people: if you asked me for this, I would not give it to you — let alone give you the leadership of the ummah after me; I would not even give you this piece of palm branch. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him: and you will not go beyond what Allah has decreed for you; and if you turn away, Allah will destroy you; and I think that you are the one about whom I was shown what I was shown. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was referring to a dream he had seen. And here is Thābit; he will speak to you on my behalf. And then the Messenger of Allah left. As for the dream the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was referring to: one of them is al-Aswad al-ʿAnsī, and the other is Musaylimah.

Musaylimah would later write a letter to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) — and this was in the eleventh year of the hijrah — and he sent this letter with two messengers, who came to meet the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). He said: from Musaylimah, the messenger of Allah, to Muḥammad, the messenger of Allah; peace be upon you. I have been made a partner with you in the affair: half of it belongs to us, and half of it belongs to Quraysh; but Quraysh are a people who transgress. So he was saying that the kingdom needed to be split in half. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) wrote back to him: from Muḥammad, the Messenger of Allah, to Musaylimah the liar. Peace be upon those who follow guidance. The earth belongs to Allah; He gives it to whomever He wills of His servants; and the end belongs to the righteous.

And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) asked them — and this is narrated by Abū Dāwūd (2761) — do you testify that I am the Messenger of Allah? They said: we testify that Musaylimah is the messenger of Allah. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: I believe in Allah and His messengers; and if I were going to kill an envoy, I would have killed you. ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd said: it became the sunnah that envoys are not killed. Carriers of letters, envoys, in Islam, should not be killed — even if they come from the enemy, even if they come from a people at war: as long as they are envoys, they are not to be killed. That is the sunnah.