The fourth: revelation would come to him with a sound like the ringing of a bell. This was the most taxing form for him: the angel would come into close contact with him, so that his forehead would stream with sweat even on a bitterly cold day (1). His mount would even sink to the ground with him when he was riding it (2). Once, revelation came to him in this manner while his thigh rested on the thigh of Zayd ibn Thābit. It became so heavy that it nearly crushed Zayd’s thigh (3).
The fifth: he would see the angel in the form in which he had been created, and the angel would convey to him whatever Allah willed to reveal. This happened to him twice, as Allah mentions in Sūrat al-Najm (the Star) (4).
The sixth: what Allah revealed to him above the heavens on the night of the Ascension, including the obligation of prayer and other matters.
The seventh: Allah, Glorified be He, speaking directly to him without an angel as intermediary, just as He spoke to Moses, son of ‘Imrān. This form is definitively established for Moses by the explicit text of the Quran, and its attestation
(1) This form of revelation and the preceding one are mentioned in the hadith of ‘Ā’isha recorded by al-Bukhārī (2) and Muslim (2333). Umm Salama, may Allah be pleased with her, saw the angel in the form of Dihya al-Kalbī, may Allah be pleased with him, as reported by al-Bukhārī (3634) and Muslim (2451). Other Companions also saw him.
(2) As reported in the mursal (disconnected) narration of Hishām ibn ‘Urwa from his father, recorded by ‘Abd al-Razzāq in his Tafsīr (3:357, Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya edition) and al-Tabarī (23:365). It is also transmitted from Hishām, from his father, from ‘Ā’isha as a musnad report, recorded by Ahmad (24868) and al-Hākim (2:505). Both chains, however, contain some weakness, and the mursal version is more plausible.
(3) Reported by al-Bukhārī (2832, 4592) from Zayd ibn Thābit, may Allah be pleased with him.
(4) Muslim (177) reports that Masrūq asked ‘Ā’isha, may Allah be pleased with her, about the words of Allah, Mighty and Majestic: “He certainly saw him on the clear horizon” [al-Takwīr: 23] and “He certainly saw him on another descent” [al-Najm: 13]. She replied: “I was the first of this community to ask the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, about this. He said: ‘It was only Gabriel. I never saw him in the form in which he was created except on those two occasions …’”