—when he was forty-three years old. He then remained in Mecca for ten years and in Madinah for ten, and he passed away at the age of sixty-three. (1)
A similar report is transmitted by Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib. (2) Imām Aḥmad (3) likewise related it through Ghundar and Yazīd ibn Hārūn, both of whom narrate from Hishām, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: “The Messenger of God ﷺ was commissioned and the Qur’an was sent down to him when he was forty years old. He remained in Mecca for thirteen years and in Madinah for ten, and he died at the age of sixty-three.”
Imām Aḥmad (4) also said: ʿAffān narrated to us; Ḥammād ibn Salamah narrated to us; ʿAmmār ibn Abī ʿAmmār informed us, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: “The Prophet ﷺ stayed in Mecca for fifteen years—seven years during which he would see the light and hear the voice, and eight years during which revelation was sent to him—and he resided in Madinah for ten years.”
Abū Shāmah remarks: “The Messenger of God ﷺ witnessed marvels even before his commissioning. Among them is what Muslim relates in his Ṣaḥīḥ (5) from Jābir ibn Samurah, who said: The Messenger of God ﷺ declared, ‘I know a stone in Mecca that used to greet me before I was sent as a prophet; I still recognize it now.’” End of Abū Shāmah’s words.
The Messenger of God ﷺ loved solitude and withdrawing from his people because of the manifest misguidance he observed among them—worshipping idols and prostrating to graven images. His longing for seclusion grew even stronger as the moment of God’s revelation drew near. May God’s blessings and peace be upon him.
Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (6) relates—on the authority of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Sufyān ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Jāriyah (7), who said, “He had a prodigious memory”—from certain scholars that the Messenger of God ﷺ would go out to Ḥirāʾ every year for a month to devote himself to worship—this being one of Quraysh’s devotional practices in the pre-Islamic period. He would feed any poor person who came to him, and when he returned from his retreat he would not enter his home until he had circumambulated the Kaʿbah.