Al-Ṭabarānī relates:

Bakr ibn Aḥmad ibn Nufayl narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shabīb narrated to us; Yaʿqūb ibn Muḥammad al-Zuhrī narrated to us; Mujāshiʿ ibn ʿAmr al-Asadī narrated to us; al-Layth ibn Saʿd narrated to us, from Abū al-Aswad Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān(1), from ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, from Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān, from Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb:

Umayyah ibn Abī al-Ṣalt was in Gaza—or in Aelia (Jerusalem). When we started back, Umayyah said to me, “Abū Sufyān, would you like to ride on ahead of the caravan so that we can talk?” I replied, “Yes,” and we did so.

He then asked, “Abū Sufyān, tell me about ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah.”

I said, “He is wellborn on both sides.” Umayyah said, “Does he keep clear of the unlawful and of wrongdoing?” I answered, “Yes.”

He asked, “And he is an honorable elder?” I replied, “Indeed, an honorable elder.”

He said, “Have age and rank detracted from him?” I answered, “You lie! With every year his honor only increases.”

Umayyah said, “Abū Sufyān, no one has ever addressed me with such words since I came to understand the world. Do not rush at me until I explain.”

I said, “Go on.”

He said, “I used to find in my books that a prophet would be raised up from this very lava-land(2) of ours. I thought—nay, I had no doubt—that I was that man. But when I conferred with the learned, I discovered that he would arise from the Banū ʿAbd Manāf. I looked among the Banū ʿAbd Manāf and found no one fit for the matter except ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah. When you told me his age, I knew it could not be he: he has passed forty and no revelation has come to him.”

Abū Sufyān continues: “Time passed as it does, and revelation came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. I set out with a group of Quraysh on a trading journey to Yemen and passed by Umayyah. Mocking him, I said, ‘O Umayyah, the prophet you used to describe has now appeared.’

“He answered, ‘It is the truth; follow him.’

“I asked, ‘What keeps you from following him?’

“He said, ‘Only the shame I feel before the womenfolk of Thaqīf. I used to tell them that I was the one, and now they would see me following a youth from the Banū ʿAbd Manāf!

“‘Yet, Abū Sufyān, I can almost see you—if you oppose him—tied up like a kid goat, led to him so that he may pass whatever judgment on you he wishes.’”

ʿAbd al-Razzaq also said: Maʿmar narrated to us from al-Kalbī, who said: While Umayyah was sleeping, his two daughters beside him, one of them was startled and cried out. He asked her, “What is the matter?” She replied, “I saw two vultures tear off the roof of the house; one of them came down upon you and split open your belly, while the other stood on the roof. The one on the roof called out, ‘Is he conscious?’ The other answered, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Is he pure?’ He replied …”(7)