the marketplaces, nor does he repay obscenity with obscenity, nor is he given to foul speech. I shall direct him toward every noble deed, endow him with every lofty virtue, make God-fearing piety his inner conscience, sound judgment his intellect, loyalty his inborn disposition, justice his way of life, truth his law, and Islam his religion. His name is Muḥammad: through him I shall guide after misguidance, teach after ignorance, enrich after poverty, and elevate after abasement. By means of him I shall open deaf ears, unlock sealed hearts, and bring together sundry, scattered whims.
I shall make his nation the best community ever raised for humankind: they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, doing so out of devotion to My Name and in affirmation of what the messengers brought. I shall inspire them to glorify, sanctify, and proclaim My oneness—in their mosques, their gatherings, their homes, wherever they turn and wherever they settle. They will pray to Me standing, sitting, bowing, and prostrating; they will fight in My path in ranks and battalions. Their very blood will be their offering, their scriptures will rest in their breasts, their sacrifice will be in their stomachs. Monks by night, lions by day—that is My favor, which I bestow upon whom I will; and I am the Possessor of great bounty (2).
We shall later cite much that corroborates this account from Sūrat al-Māʾidah and Sūrat al-Ṣaff, if God wills; in Him we place our trust.
Abū Ḥudhayfah Isḥāq ibn Bishr related, with his chains of transmission, from Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, Wahb ibn Munabbih, Ibn ʿAbbās, and Salmān al-Fārisī—interweaving their reports—that they said:
When Jesus son of Mary was sent and brought the clear proofs, the hypocrites and disbelievers among the Children of Israel were astonished at him and mocked him. They would say, “What did so-and-so eat last night, and what has he stored away in his house?” Jesus would inform them, whereupon the believers grew in faith, while the disbelievers and hypocrites only increased in doubt and denial.
At that time Jesus had no house to which he might repair; he wandered through the land with no fixed abode and no place by which he was known. Among the first of those he raised from the dead was this: one day he passed by a woman sitting beside a grave and weeping.
He said to her, “What troubles you, woman?”
She replied, “A daughter of mine has died—she was my only child—and I have pledged to my Lord that I will not leave this spot until I taste what she tasted of death, or God brings her back to life so that I may behold her (3).”
Jesus said to her, “If you were to see her, would you return [home]?”
She answered, “Yes.”
They said: He then prayed two rakʿahs, came and sat by the grave, and called out, “O so-and-so, by permission of the All-Merciful, rise and come forth!”
The grave stirred. He called a second time, and—by God’s leave—the grave split open. He called a third time, and she came out, shaking the dust from her hair. He asked her, “What kept you so long from me (4)?”
She said, “When the first cry reached me, God sent an angel who fashioned my back; when the second cry came, my spirit was returned to me; when the third cry came, I feared that …”