My mother was well-to-do, so she enrolled me in the village kuttab; I used to go there with some of the boys from our village until I was nearly finished with my writing lessons. Among those boys none was older or taller than I.
Along our route stood a mountain with a cave in it. One day I passed by that cave alone, and there I found a man clad in garments of coarse hair, even his sandals were of hair. He motioned to me, so I approached him and he said:
“O boy, do you know Jesus, son of Mary?”
I replied, “No.”
He said, “He is a messenger of Allah. Believe in Jesus, and in a messenger who will come after him whose name is Aḥmad. Allah has taken him from the worry of this world to the relief and bliss of the Hereafter.”
I asked, “What is the bliss of the Hereafter?”
He answered, “A bliss that never ends.”
I could see sweetness and light issuing from his lips; my heart became attached to him. I parted from my companions and thereafter would go out and return only by myself. My mother kept sending me to the kuttab, but I would stop short of it.
He taught me the testimony: that there is no god but Allah alone without partner; that Jesus is the messenger of Allah; that Muhammad after him is the messenger of Allah; and belief in the resurrection. He taught me how to stand in prayer and would say to me:
“When you stand for prayer facing the qiblah and the Fire surrounds you, do not turn aside; even if your mother or father calls you, do not turn—unless a messenger from among the messengers of Allah calls you. Should he call you while you are in an obligatory prayer, then break it, for he will only call you by revelation.”
He ordered me to prolong the qunūt, and he claimed that Jesus—peace be upon him—said:
“Long qunūt is a safeguard on the Bridge, and lengthy prostration is a safeguard from the torment of the grave.”
He also said, “Never lie, whether in jest or in earnest, until the angels of Allah greet you with salām; and never disobey (1) Allah out of greed or anger, so that you are not kept from Paradise even for the blink of an eye.”
Then he said to me, “If you live to see Muhammad son of ʿAbd Allah, who will emerge from the mountains of Tihāmah, then believe in him and convey my salām to him, for news has reached me that Jesus son of Mary, peace be upon him…"