341. Hanaan, from his father, who has said: Abu Ja’far has said: ‘The people turned apostate after the Prophet ﷺ except for three’. So I said, ‘And who are the three?’ So he said: ‘Al-Miqdad Bin Al-Aswad, and Abu Dharr Al-Ghaffari, and Salman Al-Farsi, may the Mercy of Allah and His Blessings be upon them. Then the people realised after a while’. And he said: ‘They are the ones upon whom the grinding stone turned, but they still refused to pledge their allegiances until they went to Amir-ul-Momineen , so they pledged their allegiances under threat, and that is the Statement of Allah the High: “And Muhammad is no more than a messenger; the messengers have already passed away before him; if then he dies or is killed will you turn back upon your heels? And whoever turns back upon his heels, he will by no means do harm to Allah in the least and Allah will reward the grateful”. [3:144]’