They said, “O Messenger of Allah, they sometimes tell us something that actually comes true.” He replied, “That is a single word of truth snatched by a jinn. He clucks it into the ear of his confidant with a sound like a hen’s clucking, and they then mix it with more than a hundred lies.”(1) This is al-Bukhārī’s wording.

Al-Bukhārī also relates(2): al-Humaydī narrated to us; Sufyān narrated to us; ʿAmr narrated, saying, “I heard ʿIkrimah say, ‘I heard Abū Hurayrah say that the Prophet of Allah ﷺ said:

“When Allah decrees a matter in the heaven, the angels beat their wings in humble submission to His word, sounding like a chain dragged over smooth stone. When fear is lifted from their hearts, they ask, ‘What did your Lord say?’ and they answer, ‘He said the truth, and He is the Most High, the Supreme.’

“The eavesdropper then hears it. The eavesdroppers stand one above another”—Sufyān illustrated this by tilting his palm and spreading his fingers—“The uppermost hears a word and casts it to the one beneath him, who in turn casts it to the one below, until it reaches the tongue of a sorcerer or a soothsayer. A shooting-star may overtake him before he can relay it, or he may succeed in casting it down before being struck. He then adds to that single word a hundred lies. Later people will say, ‘Did he not tell us on such-and-such a day that such-and-such would happen?’ and they believe him because of that one word heard from heaven.”

This narration is unique to al-Bukhārī.

Muslim(3) records a report with similar wording, transmitted through al-Zuhrī, from ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, from Ibn ʿAbbās, from a group of the Anṣār, from the Prophet ﷺ.

Allah the Exalted says: “Whoever turns away from the remembrance of the Most Merciful, We appoint for him a devil who becomes his companion. Indeed, they divert them from the path, while they think they are rightly guided—until, when he comes to Us, he will say, ‘Oh, would that there were between me and you the distance of the two Easts! What an evil companion!’” (al-Zukhruf 43:36-38)

He also says: “We appointed for them companions who made attractive to them what lay before them and what lay behind them…” (Fussilat 41:25).

And He says: “His companion will say, ‘Our Lord, I did not make him transgress; rather, he was in deep error.’ He will say, ‘Do not dispute before Me. I had already sent the warning to you. The word is not changed in My presence, and I am not unjust to My servants.’” (Qāf 50:27-29)

And He says: “Thus have We appointed for every prophet enemies—devils from humankind and jinn—who inspire one another with embellished speech in delusion. Had your Lord willed, they would not have done so; so leave them and what they fabricate, that the hearts of those who believe not in the Hereafter may incline to it, be pleased with it, and thereby commit what they commit.” (al-Anʿām 6:112-113)

Earlier, in the chapter on the angels, we cited what Aḥmad and Muslim(4) recorded through Manṣūr, from Sālim ibn Abī al-Jaʿd, from his father—whose name is Rāfiʿ—from Ibn Masʿūd, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stated, “There is none among you but that a companion from the jinn and a companion from the angels has been assigned to him.” They asked, “Even you, O Messenger of Allah?” He replied, “Even me. But Allah has helped me against him, so he commands me only to do good.”

Imām Aḥmad also narrated: ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah transmitted to us; Jarīr transmitted to us; from Qābūs, from his father—Ḥuṣayn ibn Jundub, Abū Ẓabyān al-Janabī—from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Not one of you …”