“…what the absent cannot see?”
He answered:

“The eyewitness sees what the absent cannot.”

Thus the report is transmitted in this concise form. It is the kernel of the ḥadīth we have already cited, and its chain of transmission is composed of trustworthy narrators (1).

Al-Ṭabarānī (2) relates: Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn Khālid al-Ḥarrānī narrated to us; my father narrated to us; Ibn Lahīʿah narrated from Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb and ʿUqayl, from al-Zuhrī, from Anas, who said:

When Māriyah gave birth to Ibrāhīm, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was on the verge of distress concerning the child until Gabriel, peace be upon him, descended and said, “Peace be upon you, O father of Ibrāhīm.”

Abū Nuʿaym narrates: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad told us; Abū Bakr ibn Abī ʿĀṣim told us; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Bāhilī told us; Yaʿqūb ibn Muḥammad—from a man he named—from al-Layth ibn Saʿd, from al-Zuhrī, from ʿUrwah, from ʿĀʾishah, who said:

A ruler among the Byzantine grandees, called al-Muqawqis, sent as a gift a Coptic slave-girl of royal lineage named Māriyah, together with a young cousin of hers. One day the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, entered upon her in privacy, had relations with her, and she conceived Ibrāhīm.

ʿĀʾishah continued: When her pregnancy became evident I grew anxious, but the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, remained silent. She had no milk, so he purchased a suckling ewe for her, from whose milk she fed the child. His body thrived on it; his complexion became handsome and clear. One day he came carrying him on his neck and said, “ʿĀʾishah, how do you find the resemblance?” Jealous as I was, I replied, “I see no resemblance.” He asked, “Not even in the flesh?” I said, “By my life, whoever is nourished on ewes’ milk, his flesh is bound to be wholesome.”

Al-Wāqidī (7) said: Māriyah died in Muḥarram of the year fifteen AH. ʿUmar offered the funeral prayer over her and buried her in al-Baqīʿ. The same was stated by al-Mufaḍḍal ibn Ghassān al-Ghallābī. Khalīfah, Abū ʿUbayd, and Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān said that she died in the year sixteen. May Allah have mercy on her.

Among the Prophet’s bondwomen was also Rayḥānah bint Zayd of the Banū al-Naḍīr—others say of the Banū Qurayẓah. Al-Wāqidī (12) said: She was