he was referring to the very first time the jinn ever heard the Quran. After that, the jinn’s herald came to the Prophet ﷺ, as related in the report of Ibn Masʿūd—who preserved both incidents.
Sufyān al-Thawrī narrated from ʿĀṣim, from Zur, from ʿAbd Allah (Ibn Masʿūd): “They descended upon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was reciting the Quran in the valley of Nakhlah. When they heard it, they listened attentively and said, ‘Hush!’ They were seven in number, one of them named Zawbaʿah. Then Allah revealed: ‘And when We directed toward you a group of the jinn…’ (al-Ahqaf 46:29).”
Masʿar narrated from Maʿn who said: My father related to me that he asked Masrūq, “Who alerted the Prophet ﷺ on the night the jinn listened to the Quran?” He replied, “Your father—meaning Ibn Masʿūd—told me that a tree alerted him to them.” Agreed upon.
Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind narrated from al-Shaʿbī, from ʿAlqamah: I asked Ibn Masʿūd, “Did anyone from among us accompany the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on the night of the jinn?” He said, “None of us accompanied him. We merely missed him one night in Mecca and said, ‘He has been kidnapped or spirited away—what has happened to him?’ We passed the worst night any people ever passed. At dawn—or he said: in the pre-dawn—we suddenly saw him coming from the direction of Hira. We exclaimed, ‘O Messenger of Allah,’ and told him what we had suffered. He replied, ‘The caller of the jinn came to me, so I went to them and recited the Quran to them.’ Then he set off and showed us their tracks and the traces of their fires.” Related by Muslim.
A different account states that ʿAbd Allah ibn Ṣāliḥ narrated from al-Layth, from Yūnus, from Ibn Shihāb, who said: Abū ʿUthmān ibn Sanah al-Khuzāʿī, a man from Syria, told me that he heard Ibn Masʿūd say: “While the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was in Mecca he said to his Companions, ‘Whoever among you wishes to witness tonight the affair of the jinn, let him do so.’ No one came with him but me. When we reached the heights of Mecca, he drew a line for me with his foot and ordered me to sit within it; then he went on, stood, and began to recite the Quran…"