The Prophet ﷺ said one day, "Has any of you seen a dream?"A man replied, "I saw a scale descending from the sky. You and Abu Bakr were weighed against each other, and you outweighed Abu Bakr. Then Abu Bakr and Umar were weighed, and Abu Bakr outweighed Umar. Then Umar and Uthman were weighed, and Umar outweighed Uthman. Then the scale was lifted up."We saw displeasure on the face of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
أن النبي ﷺ قال ذات يوم: من رأى منكم رؤيا؟ فقال رجل: أنا رأيت كأن ميزانا نزل من السماء، فوزنت أنت وأبو بكر، فرجحت أنت بأبي بكر، ووزن أبو بكر وعمر، فرجح أبو بكر، ووزن عمر وعثمان، فرجح عمر، ثم رفع الميزان، فرأينا الكراهية في وجه رسول الله ﷺ.
Abu Dawud (4634), Tirmidhi (2287), Nasai in Kubra (8080), and Hakim (3/70–71), (4/393–394) all narrated it through the route of Muhammad bin Abdullah Ansari, who said, Ashath bin Abdul-Malik Hamrani related to us, from Hasan, from Abu Bakra, who related it. Tirmidhi said, "This is a hasan hadith." Hakim said, "This is a sahih hadith meeting the criteria of the two Shaykhs." Dhahabi followed him in this, saying, "This Ashath is trustworthy, but the two of them did not use him as evidence." Hakim said elsewhere, "This is a hadith sahih in its chain of transmission."I say, its narrators are trustworthy, except that Hasan Basri practiced tadlis and narrated this with an, but it has another route. Abu Dawud (4635) and Ahmad (20445) both narrated it through the route of Hammad bin Salama, who said, Ali bin Zayd related to us, from Abdul-Rahman bin Abu Bakra, from his father, with similar wording, adding at the end, He said, "A caliphate of prophethood, then Allah gives dominion to whom He wills." Ali bin Zayd is Ibn Jadan, who is daif. The two routes strengthen each other.It has been narrated from Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Aqeel, from Jabir, who said, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "A man from the people of Paradise will come up to you from beneath this wall." He said, then Abu Bakr came up, and we congratulated him for what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had said. He then paused a little while, then said, "A man from the people of Paradise will come up to you from beneath this wall." He said, then Umar came up, and we congratulated him for what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had said. He said, then he said, "A man from the people of Paradise will come up to you from beneath this wall. O Allah, if You wish, make him Ali." He said this three times, and then Ali came up.There is disagreement over Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Aqeel regarding this hadith. It was narrated from him by Sufyan Thawri, Abu Malih Hasan bin Umar Raqqi, Sharik Qadi, and Zaida bin Qudama Thaqafi in this manner, meaning mentioning Ali. Ahmad narrated it (14838, 14550, 15065, 15162). But Wadeen bin Ata diverged from these four, mentioning Uthman instead of Ali .Tabarani narrated it in Awsat (6998) from Muhammad bin Abdus, who said, Safwan bin Salih related to us, who said, Walid bin Muslim related to us, from Wadeen bin Ata, from Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Aqeel, with this wording.Perhaps Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Aqeel did not preserve the hadith well, because the well-known version is the one mentioning Uthman, as has been established in the hadith of Abu Musa Ashari in the Sahihayn. The scholars have criticized Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Aqeel, and Ibn Hibban said, "His memory was poor."