Imran ibn Husayn

Imran ibn Husayn was an early Muslim Companion from Khuza'a, usually identified as Imran ibn Husayn ibn Ubayd ibn Khalaf al-Khuza'i al-Ka'bi and known by the kunyah Abu Nujayd. His father Husayn ibn Ubayd ibn Khalaf is securely preserved in the classical biographical record, while minor variants affect only the longer ancestral chain.

The main rijal tradition places Imran's acceptance of Islam in 7 AH, the year of Khaybar, around the same time as Abu Hurayra. Al-Dhahabi also preserves the conversion of his father. The sources do not provide a reliable exact birth year, so his early life is better anchored by this conversion chronology than by a reconstructed age.

Imran became a direct transmitter from the Prophet Muhammad. His reports appear throughout the canonical hadith collections and establish his importance independently of the later miracle literature associated with his name.

One of his most influential narrations concerns prayer during illness. Sahih al-Bukhari 1117 records that Imran, suffering from a painful condition, asked the Prophet how he should pray. The Prophet instructed him to pray standing if able, otherwise sitting, and if unable to do that, on his side. The report became a foundational legal text for worship under physical incapacity.

Imran also transmitted major ethical and communal teachings. Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim preserve his report that modesty brings only good or is entirely good. When a listener attempted to challenge the Prophetic wording with material from other writings, Imran strongly defended the authority of the hadith he had transmitted. He also narrated the well-known Prophetic testimony to the excellence of the earliest Muslim generations.

Another canonical report preserves his observation of Ali ibn Abi Talib's prayer. Imran said that Ali's prayer reminded him of the prayer of the Prophet. The report is important both as ritual testimony and as evidence that Imran's later neutrality during civil conflict should not be turned into a negative judgment on Ali.

Classical biographical literature remembers Imran as participating in the early Muslim community beyond transmission alone. Ibn Hajar's synthesis records that he took part in expeditions and carried the standard of Khuza'a at the conquest of Makkah. These are biographical attributions rather than Qur'anic claims and belong within that historical source layer.

Umar ibn al-Khattab later sent Imran to Basra to teach religion. Al-Tabarani, Abu Nu'aym and major biographical syntheses preserve this mission. His influence there was remembered with exceptional praise, including the report from al-Hasan al-Basri that no rider had come to Basra who was better for its people than Imran ibn Husayn.

Imran also served briefly as a judge in Basra and later asked to be relieved of the position. One report connects the resignation with a case in which a litigant accused a witness of false testimony, leaving Imran deeply troubled by the responsibility of judgment. The broad fact of short judicial service and voluntary withdrawal is stronger than every detail of the anecdote. His students included major Basran and Iraqi transmitters such as Mutarrif ibn Abd Allah, Muhammad ibn Sirin, Abu Raja al-Utaridi, Abu al-Sawwar, Safwan ibn Muhriz and Abd Allah ibn Burayda; his son Nujayd ibn Imran also narrated from him.

Imran lived with serious illness for many years. Sahih al-Bukhari directly confirms a painful condition severe enough to affect his ability to pray. Classical biography, including reports through Ibn Sirin, describes a prolonged abdominal illness lasting roughly thirty years and says that cauterization was repeatedly proposed before he finally underwent it near the end of his life. The historical wording should not be forced into a modern diagnosis beyond what the sources themselves say.

This illness forms the setting for his most famous karamah. Sahih Muslim 1226 preserves Imran's own statement that a salam used to be given to him, that it stopped after he underwent cauterization, and that it returned after he ceased it. The report is unusually strong because the supernatural experience is preserved in a sahih collection through Imran's own testimony.

Sunan Abi Dawud 3865 gives an explicit explanation, stating that Imran used to hear the greeting of the angels and that the greeting ceased with cauterization and returned when he abandoned it. Jami' al-Tirmidhi separately preserves Imran's report that the Prophet had forbidden cauterization and that their use of it did not bring success. The biographical significance lies in the connection Imran himself made between cauterization and the interruption of the greeting, not in turning the report into a generalized medical rule beyond its legal context.

Ibn Sa'd preserves another connected report in which Imran tells Mutarrif that the extraordinary greeting had returned, and Mutarrif says that Imran died not long afterward. Later biographers therefore summarized the event as angels greeting him during his illness. The safest wording remains that Imran reported receiving or hearing a supernatural salam, explicitly identified in Abu Dawud and classical biography as angelic greeting. Nothing in the strongest evidence requires visible angels, handshaking or other added details.

During the First Fitna, Imran was remembered for political restraint. Al-Dhahabi explicitly says that he kept away from the conflict and did not fight alongside Ali. Reports attributed to him advise withdrawal from violent internal strife while allowing ordinary self-defense when directly attacked. His stance should be described as non-participation in civil warfare rather than turned into a sectarian evaluation.

Imran's family record is limited but meaningful. His father Husayn is securely named, and his son Nujayd is independently documented as a transmitter from him. Ibn Sa'd also preserves a death-bed report through an unnamed daughter and a will referring to the mothers of his children in the plural. These notices show a larger household without giving enough information to invent spouse names or a complete child list.

Imran died in Basra after a long life of transmission, teaching and illness. The principal classical date is 52 AH, supported by al-Mizzi and several major biographers, while 53 AH appears as a minor variant. Ibn Sa'd records that Imran asked for his funeral procession to move quickly, that no fire or ritual wailing accompany it, and that his grave be made square and raised only a few fingers. These reports establish burial and funeral practice but do not identify the cemetery or surviving grave. His exact burial place therefore remains unknown.