Moreover, had any of those tales been true, people’s zeal and motive to transmit and publicize them would have been overwhelming, yet they are nowhere mentioned in the earliest period.

The same is true of many stories spread by the uninformed—accounts they present as miracles of the Messenger or of others. Such reports are absent from the writings of those who truly know his life; indeed, those scholars declare the narrator himself to be a fabricator. One common example is the claim heard among the masses that a cloud was constantly shading him. Not a single authoritative Muslim work known to the scholars records this, nor has any reliable scholar ever transmitted it. In their judgment it is a fabrication, however widely repeated. All that has been reported is that a cloud once shaded him when, as a young boy, he travelled with his uncle on a trading journey to al-Shām and was seen by Bahira the monk—but even this incident cannot be affirmed with certainty.

Likewise is the tale some recount that whenever he trod on stone his footprint left an impression, while sand showed none. No scholar of his biography—no, not one—has transmitted such a report; it is pure falsehood attributed to him.

The same applies to what certain people relate about the enormous numbers allegedly killed in his battles, or about the countless expeditions—claims repeated by the author of the book he titled