Home > Sira > The age of the Prophet at the time of his prophethood and its date
The age of Prophet Mohamed at revelation: Israfil then Jibril, the retreat at Hira, Read in the name of your Lord, the return to Khadija, her enumerated virtues, Waraqa ibn Nawfal and his poem, the greetings of stones and trees.
Updated on 07 September 2026 at 11:07 PM
The mention of his age (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) at the time of his prophethood: and its date. Imam Ahmad said: Muhammad ibn Abi Adi told us, from Dawud ibn Abi Hind, from Amir ash-Sha’bi: prophethood descended upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) while he was forty years old: and he was accompanied in his prophethood by Israfil for three years: he taught him the word and the thing: and the Quran descended not: and when three years passed: Jibril was joined to his prophethood: and the Quran descended upon his tongue for twenty years: ten in Mecca: and ten in Medina: and he died at sixty-three years of age. And this is a sound chain to ash-Sha’bi: and it requires that Israfil accompanied him after the forties for three years: then Jibril came to him. And as for the shaykh Shihab ad-Din Abu Shama: he said: and the hadith of A’isha does not contradict this: for it is possible that the first of his affair was the dream: then Israfil was entrusted with him during that period in which he would seclude in Hira: he would cast the word to him quickly: and not remain with him: initiating him gradually: and training him: until Jibril came to him: and taught him after covering him three times: A’isha related what took place with Jibril: and did not relate what took place with Israfil: abbreviating the hadith: or she had no knowledge of the account of Israfil.
Imam Ahmad said: Yahya told us, from Hisham, from Ikrima, from Ibn Abbas: revelation came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) while he was forty-three: and he stayed in Mecca ten: and in Medina ten: and died at sixty-three: and Yahya ibn Sa’id and Sa’id ibn al-Musayyab reported likewise. Then Ahmad reported, from Ghundar and Yazid ibn Haroun, both from Hisham, from Ikrima, from Ibn Abbas: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was sent: and the Quran revealed to him: while he was forty years old: and he stayed in Mecca thirteen years: and in Medina ten years: and died at sixty-three years. And Imam Ahmad said: Affan told us: Hammad ibn Salama told us: Ammar ibn Abi Ammar informed us, from Ibn Abbas: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) stayed in Mecca fifteen years: seven years seeing light: and hearing the voice: and eight years receiving revelation: and stayed in Medina ten years. Abu Shama said: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saw wonders before his mission: among that what is in the Sahih of Muslim, from Jabir ibn Samurah: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: I know a stone in Mecca: it used to greet me before I was sent: I know it now: end of his word.
And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) loved seclusion: and being apart from his people: because of what he saw of their manifest error: the worship of idols: and prostration to statues: and his love of solitude grew stronger at the approach of Allah’s inspiration to him: may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him. And Muhammad ibn Ishaq mentioned, from Abd al-Malik ibn Abdallah ibn Abi Sufyan ibn al-’Ala ibn Jariya, who was a reliable memorizer: from some people of knowledge: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) would go out to Hira: every year a month of the year: in which he devoted himself: and it was among the devotions of Quraysh in the Jahiliyya: he fed whoever came to him of the poor: and when he finished his retreat: he entered not his house until he circumambulated the Kaaba. And Wahb ibn Kaysan reported likewise: that he heard Ubayd ibn Umayr relating to Abdallah ibn az-Zubayr the like of that. And this indicates this was of the custom of the devotees of Quraysh: that they made retreat in Hira for worship: and therefore Abu Talib said in his famous qasida:
And a furious bull: and him who fixed Thabir in its place: and him who climbs Hira seeking bounty: and alights.
Thus the reading of this verse was corrected: as as-Suhayli mentioned: and Abu Shama: and our elder the hafiz Abu l-Hajjaj al-Mizzi, may Allah have mercy on him: and some narrators misspoke of it: saying: and him who climbs in Hira to ascend: and alights: and this is weak: and contrary to the correct: and Allah knows best. And Hira: it is shortened and lengthened: deviated and prevented: it is a mountain in the heights of Mecca: three miles from it: to the left of the wayfarer to Mina: having a summit overlooking the Kaaba: curved: and the cave is in that curve. And how fine what Ruaba ibn al-’Ajjaj said:
No: by the Lord of the women veiled in cotton: and the Lord of a corner of Hira curved.
And his word in the hadith: and the tahannuth is devotion: is an explanation by meaning: otherwise the reality of tahannouth: from the standpoint of the root: as as-Suhayli said: is the entering into the hinth: but few words were heard in the language whose meaning is the exiting from that thing: so tahannatha means: he exited from the hinth: like tahawwaba: and taharraj: and ta’thamma: and tahajjada, which is leaving the hudud, meaning sleep for prayer: and tanajjasa: and taqaddura: Abu Shama cited them. And Ibn al-’Arabi was asked about his word: he performs tahannouth, meaning he worships: and said: I know not this: rather it is yatahannaf, from the hanifiyya, the religion of Ibrahim: And Ibn Hisham said: and the Arabs say: at-tahannuth: and at-tahannuf: replacing the fa from the tha: as they said: jadatha: andjadafa: as Ruaba said: were my stones with the agdath: meaning the agdaf. And Abu Ubayda told me the Arabs say: fumm: in the place of: thumm: I say: and of that is the word of some exegetes upon the word of the Most High: and its fumm: the verse of al-Baqara: that what is meant is its garlic.
And the scholars differed upon his worship (peace be upon him) before the mission: was it upon a legislation or not: and what was that legislation? It is said: the legislation of Nuh: and it is said: the legislation of Ibrahim: and that is the likeliest, strongest: and it is said: Musa: and it is said: ’Isa: and it is said: whatever is established to be legislation with him he followed and acted by: and the exposition of these sayings: and their connections: has other places: in the principles of fiqh: and Allah knows best.
And his word: until the truth came to him: while he was in the cave of Hira: that is: it came suddenly: without appointment: as the Most High said: and you hoped not that the Book would be cast to you, save as a mercy from your Lord: the verse of al-Qasas. And the beginning of the descent of this noble surah: which is: "Read, in the name of your Lord who created, who created man from a clinging form. Read, and your Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the pen, taught man what he knew not": and it is the first that descended of the Quran: as we established in our commentary: and as will come also of Monday: as is established in the Sahih of Muslim, from Abu Qatada: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was asked of the fast of Monday: and he said: that is a day I was born in: and a day revelation came to me in: and Ibn Abbas said: your prophet Muhammad was born on a Monday: and made a prophet on a Monday: and thus said Ubayd ibn Umayr: and Abu Ja’far al-Baqir: and more than one scholar: that he was given revelation on a Monday: and this is what there is no dispute over between them.
Then it was said: that was in the month of Rabi’ al-Awwal: as has preceded, from Ibn Abbas and Jabir: that he was born, peace be upon him, on the twelfth of Rabi’ al-Awwal on a Monday: and therein he was sent: and therein he was raised to heaven. And the well-known is that he was sent in the month of Ramadan: as Ubayd ibn Umayr stated: and Muhammad ibn Ishaq: and others: and Ibn Ishaq argued for it by the word of Allah: "The month of Ramadan in which the Quran was sent down as guidance for the people": the verse of al-Baqara: and it was said: on the twelfth of it: and al-Waqidi reported, by his chain, from Abu Ja’far al-Baqir, that he said: the beginning of revelation to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was on a Monday: at the seventeenth night passed of Ramadan: and it is said: on the twenty-fourth of it.
Imam Ahmad said: Abu Sa’id, freedman of Banu Hashim, told us: Imran Abu l-’Awwam told us, from Qatada, from Abu l-Malih, from Wathila ibn al-Asqa’: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: the sheets of Ibrahim were revealed the first night of Ramadan: and the Torah on the sixth day passed of Ramadan: and the Gospel at thirteen nights passed of Ramadan: and the Quran was revealed at the twenty-fourth passed of Ramadan: and Ibn Mardawayh reported in his commentary, from Jabir ibn Abdallah, as the Prophet’s words, the like of it: and for this a group of the Companions and the Successors went to the view that the Night of Decree is the twenty-fourth night.
And as for the word of Jibril: read: and he said: "I am not a reader": the correct is that his word: "I am not a reader": is negation: meaning I am not of those who read well: and of those who preferred it: an-Nawawi: and before him the shaykh Abu Shama: and those who say it is interrogative: their word is far off: for the ba is not added in affirmation: and supports the first the version of Abu Nu’aym, from the hadith of al-Mu’amir ibn Sulayman, from his father: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, trembling with fear: "I never read a book: nor do it well: nor write: nor read. So Jibril took him and squeezed him a severe squeezing: then released him: and said to him: read: and Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: I see nothing I may read: nor write. It is reported: he covered me: as in the two Sahihs: and: he squeezed me: and it is reported: he had squeezed me, meaning he choked me until the strain reached me": it is reported with the pointed jim: and the opened: and with the accusative: and the nominative: and he did that to him thrice.
Abu Sulayman al-Khattabi said: he only did that to him: to test his patience: and well discipline him: that he be ready to bear what He charged him with of the burdens of prophethood: and therefore there would come upon him a state like fever: and the shivers would take him, meaning the cold and sweat: and others said: he only did that for reasons: among them: that he awaken to the greatness of what is cast to him: after this hard dealing grievous to souls: as the Most High said: we shall cast upon you a weighty word: the verse of al-Muzzammil: and therefore, when revelation came to him: his face reddened: and he covered himself as the young camel covers: and his brow perled sweat on a severely cold day.
And his word: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) returned with it to Khadija, his heart trembling: and in a version: his collarbones: plural of badira: Abu Ubayd said: it is flesh between the shoulder and the neck: and others said: they are veins that quake at fright: and in some versions: his badil trembled: singular badila: and it is said: badil: which is between the neck and the collarbone: and it is said: the root of the breast: and it is said: the flesh of the two breasts: and other than that: He said: blanket me, blanket me: and when the fright left him: he said to Khadija: what is wrong with me? What thing has befallen me?: and he informed her of the matter: then said: I feared for myself: and that because he had witnessed a thing he had never witnessed before: nor was in his wont: and therefore Khadija said: rejoice: never, by Allah: Allah will never disgrace you:
It is said: from disgrace: and it is said: from grief: and this for her knowledge of what Allah caused to run through him of fair habits in his character: that whoever is adorned with the traits of good is not disgraced in the world: nor the hereafter: then she mentioned to him of his noble qualities: what was of his fair virtues: She said: you join the tie of kinship: and speak truth, and it was famous of him, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, with who meets him and who parts from him: and you bear the burden of the weak: meaning on behalf of another: you give the man in need what relieves him of the weight of his family’s burden: and you make gain the destitute: meaning you hasten to good deeds: and race to give the poor: and earn his good deed before others: and the poor is called ma’dum: because his life is deficient: his existence and absence are equal: as some said:
He is not dead who died and found rest: the dead truly is the dead of the living.
And Abu l-Hasan at-Tihami said, in what al-Qadi ’Iyad transmitted of him in the commentary of Muslim: count the man of poverty dead: and clothe him a worn shroud: and his refuge a grave. And al-Khattabi said: the correct: and you make gain the destitute: meaning you expend to him: or it be: and you make gain the destitute: you give him wealth to live by: and our elder the hafiz Abu l-Hajjaj al-Mizzi chose that the ma’dum meant here is the wealth given: meaning he gives wealth to him who lacks it: and whoever said: you earn by your trade the wealth that is destitute or the precious rare: has gone far from the goal: and drowned in contention: and burdened himself with what he has no knowledge of: for such is seldom praiseworthy: and this word ’Iyad and an-Nawawi weakened, and others: and Allah knows best. And you honor the guest: meaning you honor him in presenting his food: and the fine making of his shelter: and you aid against the misfortunes of truth: And it is reported: of good: meaning when a misfortune befalls one in a good thing you aid therein: and stand with its owner until he finds a fullness of life: or a righting of life.
And his word: then she took him and went with him to her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal: who was a great elder gone blind: and we have already related a part of his account: with the mention of Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl: and that he was of those who became Christian in the Jahiliyya: and left them: and traveled to Syria: he: and Zayd ibn Amr: and Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith: and Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh: all became Christians: because they found it, at that time, the nearest of religions to truth: except Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl: for he saw in it confusion: and disorder: and alteration: and distortion: and interpretation: and his nature refused to enter it also: and the rabbis and monks gave him glad tidings of a prophet whose time had drawn near: and whose hour approached: so he returned seeking that: and persisted upon his nature and his monotheism: but death seized him before the Muhammadan mission: and Waraqa ibn Nawfal reached it: and he espied it in the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as we related: by what Khadija would describe to him: and describe to him: and what was hidden in him of pure fair traits: and what appeared on him of proofs and signs: and therefore when what happened happened: she took the hand of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): and brought him to him: and stood with him before him:
and said: son of my uncle: hear from your brother’s son: and when the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) related to him the account of what he saw: Waraka said: Holy, Holy: this is the Namous that descended on Musa: and he mentions not ’Isa: though he was later than Musa: because his law was perfect: and completing of the law of Musa: and abrogated part of it: upon the correct of the scholars’ word: as He said: and to make lawful to you part of what was forbidden to you: the verse of Al ’Imran: and the word of Waraka is as the jinn said: O our people, we have heard a Book revealed after Musa confirming what was before it, guiding to truth and a straight path: the verse of al-Ahqaf. Then Waraka said: would that I were in it a young man: meaning: would that I were today a youth: capable of faith: and useful knowledge: and righteous deed: would that I live when your people expel you: meaning: that I be expelled with you: and aid you: Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: shall I be expelled by them?! And as-Suhayli said: he only said that: because parting from the homeland is grievous to souls: He said: yes: none came with the like of what you brought but he was made an enemy: and if your day reaches me I shall support you with a firm support: meaning: I shall support you with an ever mighty support.
And his word: then Waraka tarried not and he died: meaning: he died shortly after this account: peace and blessings of Allah be upon him: and Allah pleased with him: for such as he uttered is confirmation of what he found: and faith in what came of revelation: and a righteous intent for the future. And Imam Ahmad said: Hasan told us, from Ibn Lahi’a: Abu l-Aswad told me, from Urwa, from A’isha: that Khadija asked the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) about Waraqa ibn Nawfal: and he said: I saw him: and saw upon him white garments: and I think, had he been of the people of the Fire, he would not have had white garments: and this is a fine chain: but az-Zuhri and Hisham reported it from Urwa without naming a Companion: so Allah knows best. And the hafiz Abu Ya’la reported, from Surayj ibn Yunus, from Isma’il, from Mujalid, from ash-Sha’bi, from Jabir ibn Abdallah: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was asked about Waraqa ibn Nawfal and said:
I saw him in the depths of Paradise: upon him sundus: and he was asked of Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl and said: he will be resurrected on the Day of Resurrection as a nation alone: and asked of Abu Talib and said: I brought him out of a deep pool of Hell to a shallow pool of it: and asked of Khadija: because she died before the obligations and the rulings of the Quran: and he said: I saw her on a river in Paradise in a house of reeds: no clamor in it: nor toil: a fine chain: and part of it has witnesses in the Sahih: and Allah knows best. And the hafiz Abu Bakr al-Bazzar said: Ubayd ibn Isma’il told us: Abu Usama told us, from Hisham ibn Urwa, from his father, from A’isha: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: revile not Waraqa: for I saw for him a Garden: or two Gardens: and Ibn ’Asakir reported it likewise, from the hadith of Abu Sa’id al-Adji, from Abu Mu’awiya, from Hisham, from his father, from A’isha: and this is a good chain: and it is reported without a Companion: and that is more like it.
And the two hafizes: al-Bayhaqi: and Abu Nu’aym: reported in their two books, proofs of prophethood: from the hadith of Yunus ibn Bukayr, from Yunus ibn Amr, from his father, from Amr ibn Shurahbil: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said to Khadija: "when I seclude alone I hear a cry: and I fear, by Allah, this has a matter": She said: Allah forbid! Allah would never do that to you: for by Allah you render the trust: and join kinship: and speak truth: And when Abu Bakr entered, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was not there, Khadija mentioned it to him: and said: O freed one, go with Muhammad to Waraqa: and when the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) entered, Abu Bakr took his hand: and said: let us go to Waraqa: He said: "and who informed you?" He said: Khadija: and the two went to him: and related to him: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "when I seclude alone I hear behind me a cry: O Muhammad, O Muhammad: and I flee running through the land":
He said to him: do it not: when he comes to you be firm: until you hear what he says to you: then come to me and inform me: and when he was secluded he called him: O Muhammad: say: In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful, praise to Allah Lord of the worlds: until: nor of those astray: and say: there is no god but Allah: and he came to Waraqa and mentioned that to him: and Waraqa said to him: rejoice: then rejoice: for I bear witness you are he whom the son of Maryam gave glad tidings of: and you are upon the like of the Namous of Musa: and you are a prophet sent: and you will be commanded of jihad after this your day: and if that day reaches me I shall strive with you a steadfast striving: and when he died the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "I saw the priest in Paradise: upon him garments of silk: for he believed in me and confirmed me", meaning Waraqa: that is the wording of al-Bayhaqi: and it is reported without a Companion: and in it is a strangeness: which is that the Fatiha was the first revealed.
And we have already related of his poetry what indicates his concealing faith: and binding upon it: and his certainty with him: and that when Khadija informed him of her husband’s affair with her lad Maysara: and how the cloud would shade him in the fierce heat: and Waraqa said therein verses we related before this of them: among them his word:
I blazed: and was in remembrance: blazing: for an affair that ever stirred hope:
And a description of Khadija after description: my waiting has grown long: O Khadija:
In the heart of the two Meccas: upon my hope: your word: that I see from it an emergence:
By what you told us of the word of a priest: of the monks: I loathe that it be crooked:
That Muhammad shall rule a people: and dispute whoever is his contender:
And make to shine in the lands a light: of radiance wherewith he keeps creation from wavering:
Then meets who wars upon him loss: and meets who makes peace with him triumph:
So would that I, when that be: witnessed: and were the first of them entering:
Entering into that Quraysh hated: though it clamored in its Mecca with clamors:
I hope, in that they hated altogether: to the Lord of the Throne: when they sank: to rise:
Should they remain, and I remain, it will be affairs: the disbelievers will clamor clamors over:
And he said also in his other qasida:
And truthful reports told of Muhammad: told of him when absent a sincere adviser:
That the son of Abdallah, Ahmad, is sent: to all the broad expanses contain:
And my thinking of him is that he shall be sent: truthful: as were sent the two Houd and Salih:
And Musa and Ibrahim: until seen: for him radiance: and a spread of remembrance clear:
And there follow him a folk, Lu’ay ibn Ghalib: their youth: and the white-haired hollow-cheeked:
Should he remain until the age reaches the people: then I of him rejoice in friendship, glad:
Else, then I, O Khadija, know: of your land, in the wide land, a wanderer:
And Yunus reported, from Bukayr, from Ibn Ishaq: Waraqa said:
If it be truth, O Khadija, know: your word to us: that Ahmad shall be sent:
And Jibril comes to him: and Mikal with the two of them: from Allah: a revelation dilating the breast: sent down:
Thereby triumphs whoever triumphs in it by repentance: and is wretched by it the transgressing, crafty, astray one:
Two parties of them: a sect in his gardens: and another at the environs of Hell afflicted:
When they call woe therein mallets succeed: upon their heads: then are kindled:
Glory then to Him at whose command the winds blow: and who in the days does what He wills:
And whose Throne is above all the heavens: and whose decrees in His creation are not changed.
And Waraqa said also:
O for the men: and the turning of time and fate: and naught Allah decreed of it wavers:
Until Khadija calls me to inform her: and she has of the hidden unseen no report:
She came to ask me of him: that I inform her: of an affair I see coming upon people from another quarter:
She told me of a matter I had heard of: in the long past of time and ages:
That Ahmad: Jibril comes to him: and informs him: you are sent to mankind:
I said: perhaps what you hope: the God will accomplish for you: hope then the good:
And wait: and send him to us that we ask him: of his affair: what he sees in sleep and wakefulness:
He said when he came to us speaking wondrously: the tresses and hair quivered at him:
I saw the trustee of Allah face me: in a form perfected of the greatest forms:
Then he persisted: and fear almost felled me: from what surrounds me of the trees:
I said: my surmise, and I know not, will it confirm me: that he shall be sent reciting the revelation of the surahs:
And I shall try you: if you manifest their call: of jihad: without favor: nor niggardliness.
Thus the hafiz al-Bayhaqi inserted that in ad-Dala’il: and I have reservation of their being sound from Waraqa: and Allah knows best.
Ibn Ishaq said: Abd al-Malik ibn Abdallah ibn Abi Sufyan ibn al-’Ala ibn Jariya ath-Thaqafi, a reliable memorizer, told me, from some people of knowledge: that when Allah willed the honor of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): and began him with prophethood: when he went out for a need he went farther until the houses fell behind him: and he came to the valleys of Mecca: and the depths of its wadis: and passed by no stone: nor tree: but he said: peace upon you, O Messenger of Allah: He said: and he would turn about him to his right: and his left: and behind him: and see only the trees: and the stones: and he remained thus: seeing: and hearing what Allah willed he remain: then Jibril came to him, peace be upon him, with what came of the generosity of Allah: while he was at Hira: in Ramadan.
Ibn Ishaq said: and Wahb ibn Kaysan, freedman of the family of az-Zubayr, told me: I heard Abdallah ibn az-Zubayr saying to Ubayd ibn Umayr ibn Qatada al-Laythi: relate to us, O Ubayd, how was the first of what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was begun with of prophethood when Jibril came to him: He said: Ubayd said: and I was present as he related to Abdallah ibn az-Zubayr: and those with him of the people: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) would make retreat in Hira: every year a month: He said: and that was of that with which Quraysh devoted themselves in the Jahiliyya: and the tahannuth is the retirement to worship: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) would make retreat that month of every year: and feed whoever came to him of the poor: and when he completed his retreat of that month: the first he would begin with, when he turned from his retreat, was the Kaaba: before he entered his house: and he would circumambulate it seven times, or what Allah willed of that:
then return to his house: until the month came which Allah intended for him therein what He intended of His generosity: of the year he sent him therein: and that month is Ramadan: he went out to Hira as he used to go out for his retreat: and with him his family: until the night came in which Allah honored him with His message: and had mercy upon the servants by him: and Jibril came to him by the command of Allah the Most High: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "Jibril came to me: while I slept upon a coverlet of brocade: in which a book: and he said: read: I said: I read not: he squeezed me until I thought it death: then released me: and said: read: I said: I read not: he squeezed me until I thought it death: then released me: and said: read: I said: I read not: he squeezed me until I thought it death: then released me: and said: read: I said: what shall I read? I said that only ransoming myself from him, lest he return to me doing the like of what he did to me: and he said:
"Read, in the name of your Lord who created, who created man from a clinging form. Read, and your Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the pen, taught man what he knew not", the verses of al-’Alaq: and I read it: then he ended: and turned from me: and I awoke from my sleep: as if a book had been written in my heart: He said: and I went out: and when I was in the middle of the mountain I heard a voice from the heaven: saying: O Muhammad, you are the Messenger of Allah: and I am Jibril: He said: and I raised my head to the heaven looking: and behold Jibril in the form of a man: with his feet set: at the horizon of the heaven: saying: O Muhammad, you are the Messenger of Allah: and I am Jibril: and I stood looking at him: neither advancing nor falling back: and I would turn my face from him toward the horizons of the heaven: and I looked in no quarter of it but I saw him thus: and I remained standing: neither advancing before me: nor returning behind me: until Khadija sent her messengers seeking me: and they reached Mecca: and returned to her: while I stood in my place: then he turned from me: and I turned returning to my family: until I came to Khadija: and sat beside her thigh leaning toward her: and she said: O Abu l-Qasim, where were you? For by Allah I sent my messengers seeking you until they reached Mecca: and returned to me: then I told her what I saw: and she said: rejoice, O son of my uncle: and be firm:
by Him in whose hand is Khadija’s soul: I hope you are the prophet of this community: then she rose and gathered her garments upon her: then went to Waraqa ibn Nawfal: and informed him of what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had informed her: and Waraqa said: Holy, Holy: by Him in whose hand is Waraqa’s soul: if you have told me truly, O Khadija: the greatest Namous that used to come to Musa has come to him: and he is the prophet of this community: and say to him: let him be firm: and Khadija returned to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): and informed him of the word of Waraqa: and when the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) completed his retreat and turned: he did as he used to do: he began with the Kaaba and circumambulated it: and Waraqa ibn Nawfal met him as he circumambulated the Kaaba: and said: O brother’s son: inform me of what you saw and heard: and he informed him: and Waraqa said to him: by Him in whose hand is my soul: you are the prophet of this community: and the greatest Namous that came to Musa has come to you: and you will be belied: and you will be harmed: and you will be expelled: and you will be fought: and if I reach that day I shall surely aid you with an aid Allah knows: then he drew his head near him and kissed his forehead: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) turned to his lodging.
And what Ubayd ibn Umayr mentioned: as we related: is like the paving for what came after it of wakefulness: as preceded of the word of A’isha: and he saw no dream but it came like the break of dawn: and it is possible this sleep was after what he saw in wakefulness: a morning of that night: and it is possible it was after it by a period: and Allah knows best.
And Musa ibn ’Uqba said, from az-Zuhri, from Sa’id ibn al-Musayyab: and it was among what reached us: the first of visions: meaning the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saw: that Allah the Most High showed him dreams in sleep: and that grieved him: and he mentioned it to his wife Khadija: and Allah preserved her from belying: and expanded her breast to believing: and she said: rejoice: Allah will deal with you only well: then he went out from her: then returned to her: and informed her he saw his belly split: then washed and purified: then restored as it was: She said: this is, by Allah, good: so rejoice: then Jibril manifested himself to him: while he was in the heights of Mecca: and seated him upon a noble, wondrous seat: and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to say: "he seated me upon a carpet like the form of a saddle: in which ruby and pearl": and he gave him glad tidings of the message of Allah: until the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was reassured: and Jibril said to him: read: He said: "how shall I read?" He said: "Read, in the name of your Lord who created, who created man from a clinging form. Read, and your Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the pen, taught man what he knew not" He said: and people claim that ’O you enveloped’ is the first surah revealed to him: and Allah knows best.
He said: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) accepted the message of his Lord: and followed what Jibril brought him from Allah: and when he returned to his house: he would pass by no tree: nor stone: but he greeted it: and returned to his family joyful: certain: that he had seen a great affair: and when he entered upon Khadija he said: "do you see that which I told you I saw in sleep? It is Jibril who has manifested himself to me: my Lord sent him to me": and he informed her of what came to him from Allah: and what he heard from him: She said: rejoice: for by Allah Allah does not deal with you but well: and accept what came to you of the affair of Allah: for it is truth: and rejoice: for you are the Messenger of Allah truly: then she departed her place: and came to a boy of Utbah ibn Rabi’a ibn Abd Shams: a Christian of the people of Nineveh: called Addas: and she said to him:
O Addas, I remind you of Allah, will you not inform me: do you have knowledge of Jibril?: He said: Holy, Holy: what is Jibril mentioned in this land whose people are people of idols!: She said: inform me of your knowledge of him: He said: he is the trustee of Allah between Him and the prophets: and he is the companion of Musa and ’Issa: and Khadija returned from him: and came to Waraqa ibn Nawfal: and mentioned to him the affair of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): and what Jibril cast to him: and Waraqa said to her: O daughter of my brother: I know not: perhaps your companion is the prophet whom the people of the Book await: whom they find written with them in the Torah and the Gospel: and I swear by Allah: if he be he: then he manifests his call: and I live: Allah will make me shine in obedience to His Messenger: and fair aiding: for patience and support: and Waraqa died.
Az-Zuhri said: Khadija was the first to believe in Allah and confirm His Messenger: and the hafiz al-Bayhaqi said, after inserting what we mentioned: what is mentioned therein of the splitting of his belly: it is possible it be a relation of what was done with him in his childhood: meaning the splitting of his belly with Halima: and it is possible it be a splitting another time: then a third: when he was raised to heaven: and Allah knows best. And the hafiz Ibn ’Asakir mentioned, in the notice of Waraqa, by his chain to Sulayman ibn Tarkhan at-Taymi, he said: it reached us that Allah the Most High sent Muhammad a messenger: at the head of fifty years from the building of the Kaaba: and the first thing He singled him out with of prophethood and generosity was a dream he saw: and he related that to his wife Khadija bint Khuwaylid: and she said to him: rejoice:
for by Allah Allah deals with you only well: and while he was one day at Hira: and he used to flee to it from his people: Jibril descended upon him: and drew near him: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) feared him with intense fear: and Jibril placed his hand upon his breast: and behind him between his two shoulders: and said: O Allah, lighten his burden: expand his breast: purify his heart: O Muhammad, rejoice: for you are the prophet of this community: read: and the prophet of Allah said to him, trembling with fear: "I never read a book: nor do it well: nor write: nor read": and Jibril took him: and squeezed him a severe squeezing: then released him: then said to him: read: and he repeated upon him the like of it: then seated him upon a carpet like the form of a saddle: and he saw in it of its qualities and beauty like the form of pearl and ruby:
and said to him: read in the name of your Lord who created: Then he said to him: fear not, O Muhammad: you are the Messenger of Allah: then he departed: and the concern of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) came upon him: and said: "what shall I do, and what shall I say to my people?": then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) rose afraid: and Jibril came to him from before him in the form of himself: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saw a great affair filling his breast: and Jibril said to him: fear not, O Muhammad: Jibril is the messenger of Allah to His prophets and His messengers: so be certain of the generosity of Allah: for you are the Messenger of Allah: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) returned:
passing by no tree: nor stone: but he prostrating: saying: peace upon you, O Messenger of Allah: and his soul was reassured: and he knew the generosity of Allah to him: and when he reached his wife Khadija she saw in his face the change of its color: and that frightened her: and she rose to him: and when she drew near him she kept wiping his face: and saying: perhaps because of some of what you saw and heard before today: He said: "O Khadija, do you see what I used to see in sleep: and the voice I used to hear in wakefulness: and was terrified of? It is Jibril who has manifested himself to me: and spoken to me: and made me read a word I started from: then he returned to me: and informed me I am the prophet of this community: so I returned returning: and I came upon a tree and stones: and they say: peace upon you, O Messenger of Allah": and Khadija said:
rejoice: for by Allah I always knew Allah would deal with you only well: and I bear witness you are the prophet of this community whom the Jews await: a sincere adviser informed me of it: my boy: and Bahira the monk: and he commanded me to marry you from more than twenty years: and she ceased not being with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) until he ate and drank and laughed: then she went out to the monk: who was near Mecca: and when she drew near him and he knew her: He said: what is with you, O lady of the women of Quraysh?: She said: I came to you to inform me of Jibril: He said: glory to Allah our Lord the Holy! What has Jibril mentioned in this land whose people worship idols?! Jibril is the trustee of Allah and His messenger to His prophets and His messengers: and he is the companion of Musa and ’Issa: and I knew the generosity of Allah for Muhammad:
then she came to a slave of Utbah ibn Rabi’a called Addas: and asked him: and he informed her the like of what the monk informed her: and more: He said: Jibril was with Musa when Allah drowned Pharaoh and his people: and was with him when Allah spoke to him upon the Mount: and he is the companion of ’Issa son of Maryam whom Allah aided by him: then she rose from him and came to Waraqa ibn Nawfal and asked him of Jibril: and he said to her the like of that: then he asked her: what is the report?: and she made him swear to conceal what she said to him: and he swore to her: and she said to him: the son of Abdallah mentioned to me: and he is truthful: he swore by Allah, he did not lie: nor was lied against: that Jibril descended upon him at Hira: and that he informed him he is the prophet of this community: and made him read verses he was sent with:
He said: and Waraqa was terrified at that: and said: if Jibril has settled his two feet upon the earth he has descended upon the best of the people of the earth: and he descends only upon a prophet: and he is the companion of the prophets and messengers: Allah sends him to them: and I have confirmed you of him: so send to me the son of Abdallah that I ask him: and hear of his word: and speak with him: for I fear it be other than Jibril: for some devils resemble him: to mislead by it some of the sons of Adam: and corrupt them: until a man after sound reason becomes led astray, mad: and she rose from him confident in Allah that He deals with her companion only well: and returned to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): and informed him of what Waraqa said: and Allah sent down: "N. By the pen and what they inscribe.
You are not, by the favor of your Lord, possessed", the verses of al-Qalam: and he said to her: "never, by Allah: it is indeed Jibril": and she said to him: I love that you go to him: and inform him: perhaps Allah will guide him: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) came to him: and Waraqa said to him: this who came to you: came he in light: or darkness?: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) informed him of the description of Jibril: and what he saw of his majesty: and what he revealed to him: and Waraqa said: I bear witness this is Jibril: and that this is the word of Allah: He commanded you a thing you will convey to your people: and it is a command of prophethood: should your time reach me I shall follow you: Then he said: rejoice, O son of Abd al-Muttalib, with what Allah gave you glad tidings.
He said: and the word of Waraqa spread: and his confirming the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): and that grieved the chieftains of his people: He said: and revelation paused: and they said: had it been from Allah it would have been successive: but Allah left it: and Allah sent down: "By the morning brightness, and the night when it covers" and: "Did We not expand for you your breast?" both complete. And al-Bayhaqi said: the hafiz Abu Abdallah told us: Abu l-Abbas told us: Ahmad ibn Abd al-Jabbar told us: Yunus told us, from Ibn Ishaq: Isma’il ibn Abi Hakim, freedman of az-Zubayr, told me: he related from Khadija bint Khuwaylid: that she said to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), among what Allah honored him with of his prophethood: O son of my uncle, can you inform me of this companion of yours who comes to you when he comes?:
and he said: "yes": She said: when he comes to you inform me: and while the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was with her Jibril came: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saw him: and said: "O Khadija, this is Jibril": She said: do you see him now?: He said: "yes": She said: then sit at my right side: and he moved and sat: She said: do you see him now?: He said: "yes": She said: then move and sit in my lap: and he moved and sat in her lap: She said: do you see him now?: He said: "no": and she uncovered her head: and removed her veil: and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) sitting in her lap: She said: do you see him now?: He said: "no": She said: this is not a devil: this is an angel: O son of my uncle: be firm: and rejoice: then she believed in him: and testified that what he brought was truth.
Ibn Ishaq said: I related this hadith to Abdallah ibn Hassan: and he said: I heard my mother Fatima bint al-Husayn relating this hadith: from Khadija: except I heard her say: she brought the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) between her: and her coat of mail: and at that Jibril departed, peace be upon him: And al-Bayhaqi said: and this is a thing Khadija did: whereby she confirmed the affair cautiously: for her religion: and confirming: as for the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): he was sure of what Jibril said to him: and showed him of the signs we mentioned time after time: and the greeting of the trees and stones upon him.
And Muslim said in his Sahih: Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shayba told us: Yahya ibn Abi Bukayr told us: Ibrahim ibn Tahman told me: Simak ibn Harb told me, from Jabir ibn Samurah: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: I know a stone in Mecca: it used to greet me before I was sent: I know it even now: and Abu Dawud at-Tayalisi said: Sulayman ibn Mu’adh told us, from Simak ibn Harb, from Jabir ibn Samurah: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: in Mecca there is a stone that used to greet me before I was sent: I know it when I pass by it: and al-Bayhaqi reported, from the hadith of Isma’il ibn Abd ar-Rahman as-Suddi al-Kabir, from Abbad ibn Abdallah, from Ali ibn Abi Talib: we were with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) in Mecca: and he went out in some of its quarters: and no tree: nor mountain: met him but he said: peace upon you, O Messenger of Allah: and in a version: I saw that I entered with him the valley: and he passes not... [the Arabic source ends here].