Note 319 — Chapter XIX · CAMPAIGN IN NORTHERN SYRIA. A.H. XV. A.D. 636.
Reading edition
The tradition is given in Ibn al Athîr. There is always a tendency to magnify the simplicity and self-abnegation of the first two Caliphs, and something in the story may be due to this. But the tradition is of a character otherwise not likely to have been invented; and there is nothing in it very improbable, as the two courts had dealings with each other, not always unfriendly.