Miscellaneous by Al-Albani-289

The Shaykh : After mentioning the hadith, [he mentioned] another hadith, which is also authentic, and it contains some addition and detail regarding the previous hadith. The author (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "And from 'Abdullah ibn Shaddad that a group of three from Banu 'Udhrah came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and they embraced Islam. He said, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Talhah is the one mentioned previously in the first hadith, ibn 'Abdullah "I will". So they stayed with Talhah, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sent out an expedition, and one of them went out in it and was martyred. It is possible that this is the man mentioned in the previous hadith, and that is the most likely, or it is possible that it was another man. Then he sent out an expedition, and another one of them went out in it and was martyred. Then the third one died on his bed. Talhah said, "I saw these three who were with me in Paradise. I saw the one who died on his bed ahead of them, and I saw the one who was martyred last next to him, and I saw the first of them as the last of them." So this matter troubled me, and I went to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and mentioned it to him. He said: It was narrated by Ahmad and Abu Ya'la, and their narrators are the narrators of the authentic collections. In its beginning, according to Ahmad, it is mursal as mentioned, and Abu Ya'la connected it by mentioning Talhah in it. As mentioned, there is some ambiguity in it because nothing was explicitly mentioned regarding the person to whom it refers. However, this is actually apparent to one who knows the biographies of the hadith narrators, because this hadith began from 'Abdullah ibn Shaddad that a group from Banu 'Udhrah [came]. If we know that this 'Abdullah ibn Shaddad is ibn al-Had, a Tabi'i, and he saw the mursal in the hadith because he said that a group from Banu 'Udhrah came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and since 'Abdullah ibn Shaddad is a Tabi'i, he did not witness the event or the story. From here, the hadith is mursal. So when the author (may Allah have mercy on him) said in his takhrij, "In its beginning, according to Ahmad, it is mursal," he is referring to this aspect, meaning as if he is saying, "And 'Abdullah ibn Shaddad is a Tabi'i, so he did not witness the story, so the hadith is mursal." Therefore, he adds after his statement "as mentioned, and Abu Ya'la connected it by mentioning Talhah in it."
The story, as we said, may be the previous one, but it contains something of... and it may be another story, and the first is the most likely. In it, how the Muslim, the later he is, the more reward and more recompense he has, as evidenced by the fact that the martyr who was martyred after the first one was ahead of the first one, and this third one who was not martyred was ahead of the two martyrs. Thus, the life of a Muslim, however long his life is, as long as he lives within the circle of Islam and strives against his self and his desires, the longer his life is, the better it is for him. And we ask Allah the Exalted to lengthen our lives and to make our deeds good. And this is sufficient, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.