Thus the report appears at length in the “Chapter on Dream Interpretation” of al-Bukhārī.

Ibn Shihāb related: Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān told me that Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī said—while speaking about the pause in revelation—and in his narration he stated:

“While I was walking along I suddenly heard a voice from the sky. I looked up and there was the angel who had come to me at Ḥirāʾ, seated upon a throne between heaven and earth. Fear seized me, so I hurried back and said, ‘Wrap me up! Wrap me up!’ Then God revealed:

‘O you who are wrapped up!
Arise and warn,
Magnify your Lord,
Purify your garments,
And shun all filth.’ (Sūrat al-Muddaththir 74:1-5)

After that, revelation grew intense and came one after another.”

Al-Bukhārī then remarked: The same account was corroborated by ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf and Abū Ṣāliḥ—meaning, on the authority of al-Layth—and likewise by Hilāl ibn Raddād from al-Zuhrī. Yūnus and Maʿmar transmitted it with the phrase bawādiruhu.

This ḥadīth is reported by Imām al-Bukhārī in several places of his work, and we have discussed it at length—both the chain of transmission and the text—at the beginning of our commentary on the “Book of the Commencement of Revelation.” All praise and grace belong to God.

Muslim also included it in his Ṣaḥīḥ, through the narration of al-Layth, and through Yūnus and Maʿmar from al-Zuhrī, just as al-Bukhārī cited their abbreviated versions. In the footnotes we have indicated Muslim’s additional wordings and variants—praise be to God—and the narration there concludes with Waraqah’s words: “I shall support you with powerful support.”

The statement of the Mother of the Believers ʿĀʾishah—“The first form of revelation granted to the Messenger of God was the true dream; whenever he saw a dream it would come as clear as the break of dawn”—confirms what Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yasār related from ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr al-Laythī, that the Prophet ﷺ said:

“Gabriel came to me while I was asleep, holding a piece of brocade upon which was a book. He said, ‘Read.’ I replied, ‘What shall I read?’ He pressed me until I thought it was death, then released me,” and he narrated something identical to ʿĀʾishah’s report.

This served as a preparation for what would later occur while he was awake, and it is explicitly stated in the Maghāzī of Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah—on the authority of al-Zuhrī—that he saw that in a dream and afterwards the angel came to him in a waking state.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣbahānī said in his book Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah: “Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan narrated to us…”