Al-Matalib al-'Aliyah 4187 — The virtue of the people of Yemen

Isa bin Abdullah bin Bahir relates that he was in the mosque when he came upon Sayyiduna Amr bin al-As (may Allah be pleased with him). He said to me: "Are you from the people of Yemen?" I said: "Yes." He said to me: "Come close to me and I will tell you a hadith that will delight you." So I came close to him, and Sayyiduna Amr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: One day, while we were sitting, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) suddenly came, sat with us and said: "Where are my brothers, who are connected to me and I to them; when I enter Paradise, they will enter it with me?" Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) stood up and left. Shortly afterwards he returned, sat down and said the same words again, then stood up and left. Some of us said to one another: If only we had asked him: O Messenger of Allah, are they people other than us? Only a little while later the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) came back a third time and repeated the same words. We said: "O Messenger of Allah, are they people other than us?" He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Yes, they are the people of Yemen, who lie in a state of hardship in the far corners of the earth, who are driven away from the doors of the rulers; one of them dies while some need of his remains pent up in his chest which he could not fulfil in the world."
Imam Abd bin Humayd recorded this hadith in his Musnad (4187), and Allamah al-Haythami declared its narrators thiqat (trustworthy) in Majma' al-Zawa'id.