Dimam ibn Tha'laba comes as the envoy of Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr

Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr sent Dimam ibn Tha'laba as a delegate to the Prophet in the Year of Delegations. He asked him about the obligations of Islam one by one, swearing him by God, and then he became Muslim, went back and his people became Muslim. ^{1 2}

Ibn Ishaq relates the report from Muhammad ibn al-Walid ibn Nuwayf, from Kurayb, freedman of Ibn Abbas, from Ibn Abbas. ¹

Dimam came and made his camel kneel at the door of the mosque, then tied it and went in, while the Prophet was sitting with his companions. He was a sturdy man, hairy, with two locks of hair. ¹ He stood before the Prophet among his companions and said: "Which of you is the son of Abd al-Muttalib?" The Prophet said: "I am the son of Abd al-Muttalib." He said: "Is it Muhammad?" He said: "Yes." ³ He then said that he would question him and be harsh in his questions, and that he should not feel anything against him. The Prophet said: "I will not feel anything against you; ask whatever you wish." ³

He asked him by his God, the God of those before him and the God of those who would come after him: "Did God send you to us as a messenger?" He said: "Yes, O God." ³ He asked again in the same form: "Did God command you to command us to worship Him alone, not associating anything with Him, and to cast off these rivals that our fathers used to worship alongside Him?" He said: "Yes, O God." ³ Then: "Did God command you that we pray these five prayers?" He said: "Yes, O God." ³ Then he went through the obligations of Islam one by one: the zakat, the fasting, the pilgrimage and all the laws of Islam, adjuring him at each obligation as he had adjured him at the one before. ³ When he had finished, he bore witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God, and said that he would perform these obligations and avoid what was forbidden, neither adding nor diminishing, and went back to his camel. ³

The Prophet said: "If the one with the two locks speaks truly, he will enter Paradise." ³ Dimam untied his camel's tether and went out until he came to his people and they gathered to him. The first thing he said was to condemn al-Lat and al-Uzza. They said: "Be careful, Dimam; fear leprosy, scabies and madness." He said that these neither harm nor benefit, that God had sent a messenger and sent down to him a book by which He rescued them, and that he bore witness to the two testimonies, and told them what they had been commanded and forbidden. ^{3 2} By the end of that day no man or woman in his assembly remained who had not become a Muslim. ² Ibn Abbas used to say: "We have never heard of a delegate of a people better than Dimam ibn Tha'laba." ²

• The year of his coming: Ibn Ishaq places him in the Year of Delegations; al-Waqidi said 5 AH, and Ibn Hajar preferred the ninth. ^{1 4}
• The editors establish that in all the other originals the phrase reads "do not speak of it to me" in place of "do not feel anything against you", and that the wording of the condemnation of al-Lat and al-Uzza is in the form of the commentary on the Mawahib, and in the originals it is in another form. ³
• The report is in the two Sahihs from the hadith of Anas, with other wordings. ⁵