Majma al-Zawaid — Hadith 13911

Sayyiduna Mazin bin al-Ghadubah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates: I was the custodian of an idol named Bahir at Sama'il, a town in Oman. One day we came there, and there was a sacrificial animal by it. Meanwhile I heard a voice from the idol saying: "O Mazin, listen and you will be glad: good has appeared and evil has gone into hiding. A prophet from (the tribe of) Mudar has been sent (he has been sent) with the religion of Allah, the Greatest. Leave the idols of stone, and you will be saved from the heat of Hell." The narrator says: I was disturbed and said: "This is a most astonishing thing." Then some days after that I came, and I heard a voice from the idol saying: "Come, come to me; hear what you are not unaware of. This is a Prophet sent as a Messenger, who has brought the revealed truth. Believe in him, so that you may be turned away from the heat of a blazing fire whose fuel is in the jandal (that is, the earth)." I said: "This is indeed an astonishing thing, and it is something good that is intended for me." While we were still in that state, a man came to us from the Hijaz. We said: "What news is there behind you?" He said: "A man has appeared whose name is Ahmad; whoever goes to him, he says to him: 'Respond to the one who calls to Allah.'" I said: "This is the very news that I have heard." Then I went to my idol and broke it into pieces. Then I mounted my riding animal and came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Allah Almighty opened my heart to Islam and I accepted Islam. Then I composed these verses: "I broke the idol and split it into pieces, the one that used to be our deity, around which we used to circumambulate because of the blindness of misguidance. Deliverance from that misguidance came to us through a Hashimi, whose religion I used to pay no attention to before. O rider! Convey this message to Amr and his brothers: that I detest anyone who says that the idol is my deity." By this he meant Amr bin al-Salt and his brothers from Banu Khitamah. Sayyiduna Mazin (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates: I said: "O Messenger of Allah! I am a man who is addicted to music, drinks wine and commits fornication. Years of drought have passed over us, which have wiped out our wealth and weakened the slaves and slave-women, and I have no children either. So pray to Allah Almighty that He remove the condition I am facing, grant me modesty and grant me children." The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "O Allah! In place of his singing grant him the recitation of the Qur'an; in place of the unlawful grant him the lawful; in place of fornication grant him chastity of the private parts; take wine away from him and quench his thirst with something in which there is no sin; grant him modesty and grant him children." Sayyiduna Mazin (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates: Allah Almighty removed all the things I used to feel before; He granted me modesty, I acquired knowledge of a large part of the Qur'an, and meanwhile the drought in Oman came to an end. I went to perform Hajj, and Allah Almighty granted me Hayyan bin Mazin (that is, He granted me a son). Then he recited these verses: "O Messenger of Allah! My mount has gone swiftly towards you, crossing great deserts from Oman to al-Arj, so that you may intercede for me, O you who are the best of all who walk upon the pebbles, and that my Lord may forgive me and I may return with success, to a group from whose religion my belief about Allah Almighty differs; so their opinion is not mine, and their way is not mine. I was a man who all my life was addicted to fornication and wine-drinking, until my body became worn out. Then He (Allah Almighty) granted me, in place of wine, fear and awe, and in place of fornication He granted me chastity and protected my private parts. So now the centre of all my attention and my intention is jihad, and my fasting is for Allah Almighty and my Hajj is for Allah Almighty." When I came to my people, they reviled me and told their poet, and he composed satire against me. I thought: "If I answer these people, I will in this way be satirising myself." So I withdrew from those people to the seashore and said: "To us, holding hatred for you is ruin, and, O our people, holding hatred for us is to you like milk (or: a weakness). When your faults appeared, for a long time we did not even notice them, and when our fault appeared, all of you understood it at once. Our poet was mute, while during war against us your poet was foremost and sharp-tongued in reviling us. Know that there is no rancour in our hearts against you, but in your hearts there is hatred and enmity." After that a large number of those people came to me and said: "O cousin! We objected to you and considered this thing disliked for you. If you do not agree, then very well, keep to your religion. Come back and look after our affairs." So I became the overseer of their affairs; then I went back to those people, and after that Allah Almighty guided those people as well to Islam.
Al-Tabarani recorded it through Hisham bin Muhammad bin al-Sa'ib al-Kalbi from his father, and both of them are matruk (abandoned).