Then I left him, saved up a little something, and after the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had relocated to Madinah I brought it to him and said, “I have noticed that you do not eat from charity, so this is a gift with which I wish to honor you.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ ate from it and told his Companions to eat as well. I said to myself, “That makes two signs.”

Later I came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was at Baqīʿ al-Gharqad, having followed the funeral of one of his Companions. I was wearing two woollen cloaks of mine. He was seated among his Companions, so I greeted him and then circled round to look at his back, hoping to see the seal my companion had described. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ noticed that I had moved behind him(1) and realised I was trying to verify something that had been described to me, he dropped the mantle from his back. I saw the seal and recognised it; I threw myself toward him, kissing it and weeping. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Come round,” so I moved and sat before him. I then related my story to him exactly as I have just told you, Ibn ʿAbbās, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was pleased for his Companions to hear it.

Yet slavery still occupied me, so I missed both Badr and Uḥud with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Salman said: Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to me, “Enter into a manumission contract (kitāba), O Salman.” I agreed with my master on three hundred date-palms that I would plant for him, and forty ounces of gold. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Help your brother!” So they helped me with the palms: one man contributed thirty saplings, another twenty, another fifteen, another ten—each according to what he had—until the full three hundred saplings had been collected(2). Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to me: