the Seal.’ He said, “Put your hand in.” So I slipped my hand inside the collar of his cloak and kept feeling about, searching for the Seal. I found it on the soft part of his shoulder, raised like an egg. Even so, he went on praying for me while my hand was still inside his garment. This version is related by Yaḥyā ibn Abī Ṭālib from Abū Dāwūd, but his wording is “like a fleshy swelling.”

ʿUbayd Allah ibn Iyād ibn Laqiṭ said: My father told me, from Abū Rimthah, who said: I accompanied my father to the Prophet ﷺ. He noticed a fleshy swelling between the Prophet’s shoulders and said, “Messenger of Allah, I am counted among the most skilled physicians; shall I treat it for you?” He replied, “No. The One who created it has already treated it.” Al-Thawrī transmits this from Iyād ibn Laqiṭ, describing it as “like an apple,” and its chain is sound.

Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm said: ʿAbd Allah ibn Maysarah narrated to us, ʿAtāb narrated to us, and I heard Abū Saʿīd say: “The Seal that lay between the Prophet’s shoulders was a piece of protruding flesh.”

Qays ibn Ḥafṣ al-Dārimī said: Maslamah ibn ʿAlqamah narrated to us; Dāʾūd ibn Abī Hind narrated from Simāk ibn Ḥarb, from Salāmah al-ʿIjlī, from Salmān al-Fārisī, who said: I came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he threw his cloak to me and said, “Look at what I have been commanded to show.” I saw the Seal between his shoulders, the size of a pigeon’s egg. Its chain of transmission is ḥasan.

Al-Ḥumaydī said: Yaḥyā ibn Sulaym al-Ṭāʾifī narrated to us from Ibn Khuthaym, from Saʿīd ibn Abī Rāshid, who said: “I met the Tanūkhī, Heraclius’s envoy to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ …”