his hands on the ground and lifting his head toward the sky. “Leave him,” she said, “and get on with what you have to do.” This ḥadīth possesses a sound chain of transmission.

Abū ʿĀṣim al-Nabīl said: Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā related to me; ʿUmārah ibn Thawbān informed us that Abū al-Tufayl narrated: “I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. A woman approached him until she drew near, and he spread his cloak for her. I asked, ‘Who is that?’ They replied, ‘It is the woman who nursed him.’” Abū Dāwūd recorded this report.

Muslim transmitted: Shaybān told us; Ḥammād told us; Thābit narrated from Anas that Gabriel came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was playing with some boys. He seized him, laid him on the ground, split open his chest, removed a clot and said, “This is Satan’s portion of you.” Then he washed his heart in a golden basin filled with Zamzam water, stitched it together, and returned it to its place. The boys ran to his nurse, crying, “Muhammad has been killed!” They hurried back to him and found his complexion pale.

Anas added, “I used to see the mark of the stitching on his chest.”

Baqiyyah narrated from Buḥayr ibn Saʿd, from Khālid ibn Maʿdān, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr al-Sulamī, from ʿUtbah ibn ʿAbd a narration similar to that of Anas, and it too is authentic. He further said: “My wet-nurse saddled a camel, seated me on the riding-pad, mounted behind me, and we journeyed until we reached my mother. She said, ‘I have discharged my trust and fulfilled my pledge,’ and she told her what I had experienced, but this did not alarm her. She said, ‘I saw a light emerge from within me that illuminated the palaces of Syria.’”