…for many of the saints. Joseph the Truthful (peace be upon him) said to the two young men who were imprisoned with him:

“No food will come to you for your sustenance without my telling you its interpretation before it reaches you; that is part of what my Lord has taught me.” (Yusuf 37)

In the same way, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ related reports of the past exactly as they had occurred and of the present exactly as they were taking place. He informed them, for example, that a termite (al-ʿarādah) had eaten the unjust document which the clans of Quraysh had once written, decreeing a boycott of Banū Hāshim and Banū al-Muṭṭalib until they surrendered the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. They had hung that parchment from the roof of the Kaʿbah, and Allah sent the termite, which devoured it all except the places where the name of Allah the Exalted was written (1).

In another version it is said that the insect even consumed the Divine Name, so that it would not remain alongside the wrongdoing and aggression contained in the document. While he and his clan were confined in the mountain pass (shiʿb), the Prophet ﷺ told his uncle Abū Ṭālib of this. Abū Ṭālib went out to Quraysh and conveyed what the Prophet had said. They replied, “If the matter is as he says, well and good; otherwise hand him over to us.” They agreed, lowered the parchment, and found it exactly as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had described. The clans of Quraysh thereupon abandoned the pact they had conspired to uphold against Banū Hāshim and Banū al-Muṭṭalib, and through that Allah guided many people (2). Countless similar incidents have already been set out in various sections of the prophetic biography (3); to Allah belong all praise and grace.

On the Day of Badr, when the Prophet ﷺ sought ransom from his uncle al-ʿAbbās, the latter claimed that he had no money. The Prophet said, “Where is the wealth you and Umm al-Faḍl buried beneath the threshold, saying to her, ‘If I am killed, it shall be for the children’?” Al-ʿAbbās replied, “By Allah, O Messenger of Allah, no one knew of this matter except Umm al-Faḍl and me—save Allah, Exalted is He. (4)”

He informed the Companions of the death of the Negus on the very day the Negus died in Abyssinia, and he performed the funeral prayer for him (5). He described the killing of the commanders at Muʾtah, one after another, while standing on the pulpit, tears flowing from his eyes (6). He disclosed the letter that Ḥāṭib b. Abī Baltaʿah had sent with Sārah, the freedwoman of Banū ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, and dispatched ʿAlī, al-Zubayr, and al-Miqdād after her; they found it concealed in her plaits—according to another report, inside her girdle—as has already been mentioned in the account of the Conquest (7).

He also said to the two envoys of Chosroes, whom the deputy of Yemen had sent to inquire about the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, “My Lord…"