Unays then said, “I have some business in Mecca; look after the herd for me while I am away.”

So Unays set off until he reached Mecca, but he was gone a long while (1) before he returned.

I asked him, “What did you manage to do?”

He answered, “I met a man in Mecca who follows the same religion as you, and he claims that he has been sent as a messenger.”

I said, “What are the people saying about him?”

He replied, “They call him a poet, a soothsayer, or a sorcerer.”

(Now, Unays was himself one of the well-known poets.)

He continued, “I have heard the speech of the soothsayers, and what he says is nothing like theirs. I have also compared his words with the utterances of the poets (2), and no poet’s tongue can make them fit as poetry. By Allah, he is truly truthful, and they are the liars!”

I said, “Then watch over things for me until I go and see for myself.”

I went to Mecca. I quietly approached a man among them (3) and asked, “Who is this man you call the ṣābiʾ—the renegade?”

The man pointed at me and said, “That is the ṣābiʾ.”

At once the people of the valley converged on me with every clod of earth and piece of bone they could find, until I collapsed unconscious. When I came to, I looked as though I were a red statue (4). I made my way to Zamzam, washed the blood from myself, and drank its water.

By Allah, nephew, I stayed there for thirty nights and days with nothing to eat except the water of Zamzam. I grew stout until the folds of my stomach split apart, and I felt no pang (5) of hunger at all.

One night, while the people of Mecca were under a bright full moon (6), two women came circling the Kaʿba,