“Ask her how long she carried him.” So I went to her and asked her. She replied, “I carried him for twelve months.” He continued: Then he sent me back to her and said, “Ask her about the cry he gave when he was born.” So I returned to her and asked her. She replied, “He cried like a one-month-old infant.”

The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—then said to him, “I have concealed something for you.” He replied, “You concealed the muzzle of a dust-colored sheep (1) and the smoke.” He wanted to say “the smoke,” but could not complete the word, so he said, “The smo—, the smo—.” (2)

The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—tested him with “the smoke” in order to ascertain the true nature of his condition.

What is meant here by “the smoke” is the saying of Allah Most High: “Then watch for the Day when the sky will bring a visible smoke” [al-Dukhān: 10]. In the narration of Ibn ʿUmar related by Imam Ahmad, it states: “I have concealed something for you.” What he concealed from him was: “the Day when the sky will bring a visible smoke.” (3)

Ibn Kathīr said: “Ibn Sayyād received occult disclosures in the manner of soothsayers, through the speech of the jinn. They truncate—that is, cut short—the expression; hence he said, ‘It is the smo—’;