A similar account was related by Dāwūd al-ʿAṭṭār from Ibn Khuthaym.

Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Miṣīṣī likewise reported it from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wāqid, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Khuthaym, from Nāfiʿ ibn Sarjas, who said, “I questioned Abū al-Ṭufayl, and he recounted the same story.”

ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn al-Nuʿmān said: “Thābit ibn Yazīd narrated to us, saying: Hilāl ibn Khabbāb narrated to us from Mujāhid, from his freedman, who told him that he had been among those who rebuilt the Kaʿbah during the Age of Ignorance. He said:

‘I had carved with my own hands a stone that I worshipped instead of Allah. I would bring curdled milk—so sour I could hardly bear its smell—and pour it over the idol. A dog would come, lick it off, then lift its leg and urinate. We kept building until we reached the Black Stone. None of us could see where it was, when suddenly it appeared in the midst of our stones, about the size of a man’s head, so polished that a man’s face could almost be seen in it. One clan of Quraysh said, “We shall place it.” Others said, “No, we shall place it.” They agreed to appoint an arbiter and decided that the first man to enter the pass would judge between them. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ arrived, whereupon they exclaimed, “The Trustworthy One has come to you!” They told him what had happened. He placed the Stone in a cloth, then summoned the various clans; each took hold of one edge of the cloth with him, and he ﷺ set the Stone in its place.’

(The name of Mujāhid’s freedman was al-Sāʾib ibn ʿAbd Allāh.)

Isrāʾīl transmitted from Abū Yaḥyā al-Qattāt, from Mujāhid, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, who said, “The House was established two thousand years before the earth. ‘And when the earth is stretched out’ (Q 84:3)—it will be stretched out from beneath it.” A similar report was narrated by Manṣūr from Mujāhid.

How Allah safeguarded him from the ways of the Age of Ignorance:

Among the things from which Allah protected Muḥammad ﷺ is that Quraysh were called al-ḥums—that is, the stern and mighty ones. They would stand within the Sacred Precinct at Muzdalifah and refused to stand with the rest of the people at ʿArafah, doing so out of a claim to leadership