Moreover, many thousands heard the Quran at the very time of the Prophet’s mission, and they themselves had witnessed the state of the sky. Had this change not actually taken place—bearing in mind that the majority of those listeners at first branded him a liar, and that those who eventually believed belonged to separate, mutually independent groups—it would have been impossible for them all to concur upon a falsehood, or to hide the truth, or even to remain silent about it. Since no one denied the matter, and, on the contrary, numerous reports corroborated exactly what the Quran had stated—that an extraordinary barrage of shooting stars was being flung about, the like of which had never been seen before—people began to wonder:
“Is this happening among the heavenly bodies fixed in the firmament, or somewhere else? If it is striking the stars of the spheres, that would spell the destruction of the cosmos.”
But when they realized that the meteors were falling below those stars, they understood that some momentous event had occurred.

Both Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim record, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās:
“The Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—set out with a party of his Companions heading toward the market of ʿUkāẓ. In the meantime the devils had been cut off from the news of the heaven, and blazing meteors were hurled at them. The devils returned to their people, who asked, ‘What has happened to you?’ They replied, ‘We have been barred from the sky, and meteors have been sent against us.’ Their people said, ‘This can only be because something new has occurred. Traverse the eastern and western horizons of the earth and find out what it is that has blocked us from heavenly news.’ So they went out, roaming…”