Sunan Ibn Majah
Sunan Ibn Majah 1633
حَدَّثَنَا إِسْحَاقُ بْنُ مَنْصُورٍ، أَنْبَأَنَا عَبْدُ الْوَهَّابِ بْنُ عَطَاءٍ الْعِجْلِيُّ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَوْنٍ، عَنِ الْحَسَنِ، عَنْ أُبَىِّ بْنِ كَعْبٍ، قَالَ كُنَّا مَعَ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ وَإِنَّمَا وَجْهُنَا وَاحِدٌ فَلَمَّا قُبِضَ نَظَرْنَا هَكَذَا وَهَكَذَا .
Unreviewed translation. All hadiths in this collection are available in five languages. Titles and introductions may remain in Arabic.
Ishaq ibn Mansur informed us; Abd al-Wahhab ibn Ata al-Ijli informed us, from Ibn Awn, from al-Hasan, from Ubayy ibn Ka‘b, who said: We were with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and our direction was one. When he passed away, we looked this way and that.
Notes and open questions — unreviewed
‘Our direction was one’ follows the Arabic closely; the source does not spell out the sense of this image.
قَالَ كُنَّا مَعَ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ وَإِنَّمَا وَجْهُنَا وَاحِدٌ فَلَمَّا قُبِضَ نَظَرْنَا هَكَذَا وَهَكَذَا .
The phrase وَإِنَّمَا وَجْهُنَا وَاحِدٌ literally says that their wajh (face or direction) was one; its intended figurative sense is not explicit in the source wording.
Does ‘our direction was one’ retain the intended meaning without supplying an interpretation?