…and other explanations have also been given, as we have set out in the Tafsīr (1).
As for the leper—meaning a person afflicted with bahaq (vitiligo)—it is related that on the day of Uḥud the Messenger of Allah ﷺ restored the eye of Qatādah ibn al-Nuʿmān after it had slipped down his cheek. He placed the eye in his blessed hand, returned it to its socket, and it remained sound and sighted; indeed, it became the better of his two eyes—may Allah be pleased with him. This was recorded by Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yasar in the Sīrah (2) and by others, and we have given the full account there; to Allah belong all praise and favor.
Later, one of Qatādah’s descendants, ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatādah, entered upon ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. When the caliph asked who he was, he recited:
I am the son of the man whose eye ran down his cheek,
then was restored by the Chosen One’s palm in the finest way;
It came back just as it had been at the very first—
how lovely an eye, and how lovely a cheek!
ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz replied:
These are true distinctions—not two small bowls of milk
thinned with water, that soon turn only to whey. (3)
He then bestowed upon him a generous reward (4).
Al-Dāraqutnī reports that both of Qatādah’s eyes were injured so badly that they ran down his cheeks, whereupon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ replaced them. Yet the version most widely accepted is the first, as cited by Ibn Isḥāq.
Story of the blind man whose sight Allah restored through the Prophet’s ﷺ supplication:
Imām Aḥmad said: Rūḥ and ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmar narrated to us; they said: Shuʿbah narrated to us from Abū Jaʿfar al-Madīnī, who said: I heard ʿImārah ibn Khuzaymah ibn Thābit relate from ʿUthmān ibn Ḥunayf that a blind man came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, “O Messenger of Allah, pray to Allah that He grant me wellness.” He replied, “If you wish, I will defer that, and it will be better for your Hereafter; but if you wish, I will pray.” The man said, “No—pray to Allah for me.” The Prophet ﷺ therefore instructed him to perform wuḍūʾ, to pray two rakʿahs, and to make the following supplication:
“O Allah, I ask You and turn to You through Your Prophet, Muhammad, the Prophet of mercy. O Muhammad, I turn through you to my Lord concerning this need of mine, so let it be fulfilled.”
In the wording transmitted by ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmar (5) it continues: “So intercede for me.” The man did as he was instructed, and he was cured (6).