lying in the courtyard at my family’s doorway—the youngest among those present—and he said,

“If this boy is allowed to live out his years, he will meet him.”

It was not long before Allah sent His Messenger, and that Jew was still alive among us. We believed in him and affirmed his truth, but the Jew denied him out of envy and spite.

So we said to him, “So-and-so, were you not the one who told us what you told us?”

He replied, “It is not he.”

Anas ibn Mālik—may Allah be pleased with him—narrated: “A Jewish lad used to serve the Prophet. When the boy fell ill, the Messenger of Allah came to visit him and found the lad’s father sitting by his head, reciting the Torah. The Messenger of Allah said, ‘O Jew, I adjure you by Allah who sent down the Torah to Moses: do you find in the Torah my description and my emergence?’

He answered, ‘No.’

The boy said, ‘Indeed, by Allah, O Messenger of Allah, we do find your description and your emergence in the Torah, and I testify that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah.’

The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—then said, ‘Move this one away from beside…’