So he left, but he was long in returning to me(1). When he finally came back I asked, “What kept you?” He replied, “I met a man who claims that God has sent him with the very religion you follow.” I asked, “What do the people call him?” He answered, “They say he is a poet and a sorcerer [and a soothsayer].” Anīs himself was a poet, and he said, “I have heard the soothsayers, and he does not speak as they do. I have weighed his words against every known metre of poetry,(2) and, by God, no one can honestly say it is poetry. By God, he is truthful, and they are the liars.”

I then said, “Can you look after my affairs(3) while I go [and see for myself]?” He said, “Yes—but beware of the people of Mecca, for they have developed a fierce hatred for him(4) and deal with him harshly.”

I set out and, on reaching Mecca, approached a man whom I thought unlikely to harm me(5) and asked, “Where is that man they call the renegade?” He pointed me out, whereupon the people of the valley swarmed over me with every clod of earth and bone they could find until I fell unconscious. When I came to, I looked as though I were a red stone idol. I went to Zamzam, drank its water, and washed the blood from myself. Then I slipped between the Kaʿbah and its curtains and, my dear nephew, I stayed there for thirty days and nights. I had no food but the water of Zamzam, yet I grew so stout that the folds of my belly split,(6) and I never felt the slightest pang of hunger.(7)

One night, bathed in the light of a full moon,(8) God cast slumber upon the skulls(9) of the Meccans, and no one was circling the House except two women who came near me, invoking Isāf and Nāʾilah. I said, “Marry one of them to the other!” but that did not stop them.(10) [They passed by me again,] and I said, “They are like pieces of wood, though I did not incline toward them.”(11) The two women ran off wailing, crying, “If only some of our men were here!”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ and Abū Bakr met them as they were descending from the mountain and asked, “What is the matter with you?” They replied, “The renegade is between the Kaʿbah …”