al-Maqdis every year during this month. So I set out, and I found his donkey standing there. He soon emerged, and I told him my story. He said, “Sit here until I return to you.” He departed but did not come back until the following year. When he returned he asked, “Are you still sitting here?” I replied, “Yes.”

He said, “I know of no one on earth more knowledgeable than a man who will soon appear in the land of Taymāʾ. He is a prophet, and this is the time for him. If you travel now you will catch up with him. He has three signs: the Seal of Prophethood; he does not eat alms; and he eats gifts.” He then related the remainder of the account.

Ibn Luhayʿah said: Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb narrated to us, saying: al-Sallam ibn al-Ṣalt told me, from Abū’l-Ṭufayl, from Salmān, who said:

“I was a man from Jay, a city in Isfahān. I came to a man who was so wary that he rarely spoke to anyone, and I asked him, ‘Which religion is best?’ He replied, ‘I know of no one except a monk in Mosul.’ So I went to him,” and he mentioned the story. In it he said, “I met a man from the Ḥijāz and asked him, ‘Will you carry me to al-Madinah?’ He said, ‘What will you give me?’ I answered, ‘I will be your slave.’ When we arrived, he put me to work among the date-palms. I used to draw water like a camel until the skin of my back and chest was rubbed raw. I could find no one who understood my language, until an old Persian woman came to draw water. I asked her, ‘Where is the man who has appeared?’ She directed me to him. I gathered some dates, brought them, and presented them to him.” And he narrated the rest of the ḥadīth.