(1) He said: Al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah stopped and spoke with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ conversed with him, hoping that he might embrace Islam. While they were engaged, ʿAbdullāh ibn Umm Maktūm—the blind Companion whose mother was ʿĀtikah bint ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAnkathah (2)—passed by, addressed the Prophet ﷺ and began asking him to recite the Qur’an to him. This weighed on the Prophet, for it distracted him from al-Walīd and the hope he cherished for his conversion. When Ibn Umm Maktūm persisted, the Prophet turned from him with a frown and left him; whereupon Allah the Exalted revealed: “He frowned and turned away because the blind man came to him … on scrolls exalted, purified” (ʿAbasa 1–14).
It has also been said that the person who was speaking with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ when Ibn Umm Maktūm arrived was Umayyah ibn Khalaf; Allah knows best.
Ibn Isḥāq (3) then mentioned those of the emigrants to Abyssinia who returned to Mecca when news reached them that the Meccans had accepted Islam. The report itself is not sound, yet there was a circumstance behind it. What is established in the authentic collections and elsewhere is that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sat one day with the idolaters, and Allah revealed: “By the star when it descends, your companion has not strayed …” (al-Najm 1–2). He recited the sūrah to them in full and then prostrated, and everyone present—Muslims, idolaters, jinn and human beings—prostrated with him.
There was a reason for this which many commentators cite in connection with Allah’s words: “We did not send before you any messenger or prophet but that, when he desired, Satan insinuated [something] into his desire. But Allah abolishes what Satan casts, then He makes His verses firm; and Allah is All-Knowing, Wise” (al-Ḥajj 52). They mention the story of the Gharānīq (4). We prefer to pass over it in silence, lest it reach ears that will not place it in its proper context—although the basis of the story is authentically established.
Al-Bukhārī (5) recorded—through Abū Maʿmar, ʿAbd al-Wārith, Ayyūb and ʿIkrimah—from Ibn ʿAbbās who said: “The Prophet ﷺ prostrated during [the recitation of] Sūrah al-Najm, and the Muslims, the idolaters, the jinn and human beings all prostrated with him.” This narration is exclusive to al-Bukhārī; Muslim did not transmit it.
Al-Bukhārī (6) also reported—through Muḥammad ibn Bashshār, Ghundar, Shuʿbah and Abū Isḥāq—that al-Aswad heard ʿAbdullāh say: “The Prophet ﷺ recited Sūrah al-Najm in Mecca and prostrated during it; those with him prostrated as well, except for an elderly man who scooped up a handful of pebbles—or dust—placed it on his forehead and said, ‘This is sufficient for me.’ I later saw him killed as a disbeliever.” Muslim, Abū Dāwūd and al-Nasāʾī likewise transmitted this ḥadīth through Shuʿbah (7).