What was offered, and refused

The plain version of this episode is short, because the classical sources that carry it are not detailed: Abdullah ibn Hudhafah was taken captive by the Byzantines, and while held he was pressed to give up his religion. He did not.

That is the part the biographical dictionaries agree on. What is usually added to it — specific inducements offered and refused, a specific test he is said to have been put through, and an account of what happened once he and other captives were released — comes mainly from modern retellings such as Companions of the Prophet, which draw the story out at far greater length than the earlier works do.

The record keeps to the plain version rather than the fuller one, because the fuller one cannot be checked against the classical sources on its own. What can be said honestly is this: held by an enemy power with every reason to want him to renounce his faith, he did not.