“and to support you.”
At that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked, “Will they really expel me?”
Al-Suhaylī (1) comments that he said this because separation from one’s homeland is grievous to the soul.
Waraqah replied, “Yes. No one has ever brought what you are bringing without facing enmity; and if I live to see your day I shall support you with decisive, victorious help.”
That is: I shall stand by you with invincible assistance for ever.
His remark, “Not long thereafter Waraqah died,” means that he passed away shortly after this incident—may Allah have mercy on him and be pleased with him. Speech such as his is an acknowledgment of what they had discovered, faith in the revelation that had come, and a righteous intention for the future.
Imām Aḥmad (3) relates: Ḥasan narrated to us, from Ibn Lahīʿah, who said: Abū al-Aswad told me, from ʿUrwah, from ʿĀʾishah, that Khadījah asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about Waraqah b. Nawfal, and he replied:
“I saw him [in a dream] wearing white garments, and I deem that had he been among the people of Hellfire he would not have been dressed in white.”
This chain of transmission is sound, though al-Zuhrī and Hishām reported it from ʿUrwah as a mursal narration; Allah knows best.
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Yaʿlā (5) also narrated, through Surayj b. Yūnus, from Ismāʿīl, from Mujālid, from al-Shaʿbī, from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was asked about Waraqah b. Nawfal and said:
“I have seen him, clothed in white; I beheld him in the midst of Paradise, wearing silk brocade.”
He was asked about Zayd b. ʿAmr b. Nufayl and said:
“He will be raised on the Day of Resurrection as a nation unto himself.”
He was asked about Abū Ṭālib—[whether your prophethood benefits him]—and he said:
“[Yes.] I brought him out from a depth of Hell to a shallow part of it.”
He was asked about Khadījah—because she died before the prescriptive duties and rulings of the Qur’an were revealed—and he said:
“I saw her by a river in Paradise, in a house made of hollow pearls, where there is neither clamour nor fatigue.”
Its chain is sound, and parts of it are corroborated in the Ṣaḥīḥ collections. Allah knows best.