crawled forward, took up the Torah, and read from it. When he reached the passage describing the Prophet ﷺ and his community he declared, “This is your description and that of your community. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah.” The Prophet ﷺ then said, “Support your brother.” Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal recorded this in his Musnad.

A group of transmitters narrated to us from Ibn al-Lattī that Abū’l-Waqt informed him, who said: al-Dāwūdī informed us, who said: Ibn Ḥamawiyyah informed us, who said: ʿĪsā al-Samarqandī informed us, who said: al-Dārimī informed us, who said: Mujāhid ibn Mūsā narrated to us, who said: Maʿn ibn ʿĪsā narrated to us, who said: Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ narrated from Abū Furwah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that he asked Kaʿb, “How do you find the description of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in the Torah?” He replied,

“We find him named Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh, born in Mecca, who will migrate to Ṭābah (Medina), and whose authority will be in Syria. He is neither foul-mouthed nor noisy in the marketplaces; he does not repay evil with evil, but pardons and forgives. His community are the ever-praising ones: they praise Allah in every state of blessing and proclaim Allah’s greatness upon every rise of ground. They wash the extremities of their bodies, gird themselves at their waists, and stand in rows in their prayer just as they stand in rows in their battles. The hum in their mosques is like the buzzing of bees, and the call of their caller is heard in the open sky.” I said: he means the adhan (call to prayer).

Yūnus ibn Bukayr likewise reported, from Ibn Isḥāq, who said: Muḥammad ibn Thābit ibn Sharḥabīl told me, from Umm al-Dardāʾ, who said: “I asked Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, ‘How do you find the description of the Prophet ﷺ in the Torah?’” He related something similar to the report of ʿAṭāʾ.