the prophets regarding him; the declarations of soothsayers and disembodied voices in his favor; the Story of the Elephant, which Allah made a sign in the very year of his birth, together with the other wonders that occurred that year and pointed to his prophethood; the sky’s being filled with shooting stars that pelt the devils—an occurrence unlike anything customary before or after his commissioning; and his disclosure of hidden matters that no one could know except through Allah’s teaching, without any human instructor. Thus he informed them of past events—such as the stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Hud, Shuʿayb, Salih, and others—and of events yet to come.
His people knew that he had not studied with the People of the Book or with anyone else. In Mecca there was no scholar from among them whose tutelage he could have sought; indeed, he never even met with any of them who knew Arabic, and he himself was proficient in no tongue but Arabic. He neither wrote a book nor read a written text.
Before his prophethood he undertook only two journeys: one, while still a young boy, in the company of his uncle Abu Talib