When I caught sight of him I thought he must be that very man, so I said, “Peace be upon you, O Messenger of God.”
He replied, “Hush, hush! No— not yet. Would that I were he!”
I asked, “Who is this elder?”
They answered, “This is Abū Naḍlah—this is Hāshim ibn ʿAbd Manāf.”
I turned away saying, “By God, this is true glory, not the glory of the House of Jafnah”—a reference to the Ghassānid Arab kings of Syria who were called the House of Jafnah. The duty that has just been mentioned of Hāshim was the rifādah, that is, providing food for the pilgrims during the season. (1)

Abū Nuʿaym also said (2): ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar related to us; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Yaḥyā related to us; Saʿīd ibn ʿUthmān (3) related to us; ʿAlī ibn Qutaybah al-Khurāsānī related to us; Khālid ibn Ilyās related to us, from Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Jahm, from his father, from his grandfather, who said:

I heard Abū Ṭālib recounting from ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib: “While I was sleeping in the Ḥijr (the semi-circular area beside the Kaʿbah) I had a dream that overwhelmed me and filled me with intense fear. I therefore went to the soothsayer of Quraysh, wearing a fine silk cloak, my braid resting on my shoulder. When she saw me she recognized the change in my face—I was, after all, the leader of my people—and she said, ‘Why has our master come to us with such pallor? Has some calamity troubled him?’
I answered, ‘Indeed it has!’—and normally no one would address her until he first kissed her right hand, placed his own hand on the crown of her head, and then stated his need, but I did not do so, for I was the chief of my clan. I sat down and said, ‘Last night, while asleep in the Ḥijr, it was as though a tree sprouted whose top reached the sky and whose branches stretched over East and West. Never have I seen a light brighter than it—seventy times more brilliant than the sun. I saw Arabs and non-Arabs prostrating to it, and it kept increasing every moment in grandeur, radiance, and height: at one moment it would be hidden, the next it would blaze forth. I saw a group of Quraysh clinging to its branches, and another group of Quraysh trying to cut it down. Whenever they drew near, a youth—whose face was the most handsome and whose scent the sweetest I have ever known—drove them back, breaking their backs and gouging out their eyes. I raised my hand to take a share from the tree, but the youth prevented me. I asked, “Whose share is it?” He replied, “The share belongs to those who have clung to it and reached it before you.” I awoke terrified and alarmed.’

The soothsayer’s face changed and she said, ‘If your dream is true, a man will emerge from your loins who will rule East and West, and people will submit to him.’ ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib then said to Abū Ṭālib, ‘Perhaps you will be that child.’

Abū Ṭālib used to recount this story [after the Messenger of God ﷺ had been born and had been sent as a prophet], and he would add, ‘By God—He knows best—the tree was Abū al-Qāsim, the Trustworthy.’ People would say to Abū Ṭālib, ‘Will you not believe?’ and he would answer, ‘It would mean disgrace and reproach.’ (6)