food comes his way. His sword is slung across his shoulder and he does not fear whomever he meets. He himself enters the fray, while his Companions lay down their lives for him—they love him more than their own children and fathers. He will depart from a sacred land and arrive at another sanctuary, emigrating to a country of saline flats and date-palms, and he follows the religion of Abraham, peace be upon him.

Al-Mughīrah said:
“I asked him, ‘Tell me more of his attributes.’

He replied:
‘He wraps a waist-cloth around his middle and washes his limbs. He is distinguished by favors granted to no prophet before him: whereas every prophet was sent only to his own people, he has been sent to all mankind; the earth has been made for him a mosque and a means of purification—wherever the time of prayer overtakes him, he performs tayammum (dry ablution) and prays—whereas those before him were under strict constraint, able to pray only in churches and chapels.’

Al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah continued, ‘I preserved all of that—from his words, from the words of others, and from everything else I heard on the matter.’

Al-Wāqidī then records a lengthy account of his return and conversion to Islam, and of what he was told regarding