—they realized, through the Prophet ﷺ, that they had already been barred from overhearing the heavenly assembly, so that nothing of the celestial news might mingle with revelation and cause confusion. Accordingly, they believed, affirmed the truth, and hurried back to their people as warners.

Yaʿqūb ibn ʿUtbah told me that he had heard the following: the first Arab tribe to be alarmed by the pelting of the stars was Thaqīf. They went to ʿAmr ibn Umayyah—regarded as the shrewdest of the Arabs—and said, “Do you not see what has happened?” He replied, “Indeed I do. Observe: if the very guide-stars by which one navigates and determines the seasons are the ones being struck, then, by Allah, the world is being folded up and its inhabitants destroyed. But if it is some other stars while those remain fixed in their places, then this is a matter Allah wills for His creation—so what is it?”

I (the author) say: Ḥuṣayn narrated a report similar to that of Yaʿqūb, from al-Shaʿbī, but he said that they went to ʿAbd Yalīl ibn ʿAmr al-Thaqafī, who had gone blind.

There are also several other reports—whose chains are weak—stating that more than one soothsayer was informed by a vision of the jinn, delivered in rhymed prose and rajaz verse, which mentioned the Prophet’s ﷺ forthcoming mission; some people likewise heard such messages from the voices of the jinn.

With the chain of transmission to Ibn Isḥāq: he said, ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatādah related to me, from men of his own clan, who said: “Among the things that called us to Islam—along with Allah’s mercy and His guidance—was that we used to hear from the Jews, while we were idol worshippers and they were People of the Scripture. Continual hostilities existed between us; whenever we prevailed over them they would say, ‘The time is near for a prophet to be sent. We shall kill you alongside him, as ʿĀd and Iram were destroyed.’ We heard this from them frequently. So when Allah sent His Messenger ﷺ and he invited us, we responded, recognizing what they had been threatening us with. We therefore reached him before they did: we believed in him while they disbelieved. Concerning this, the verse was revealed:”}