of the Hour? What will be the first food that the people of Paradise eat? And what makes a child take after his father or his mother?”

He answered, “Gabriel has just informed me about them.” ʿAbd Allah asked, “Gabriel?” “Yes,” the Prophet said. (1) “That is the angel whom the Jews regard as their enemy.” He then recited, “Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel—it is he who has brought it down upon your heart by Allah’s permission” (Q 2:97).

“As for the first of the portents of the Last Hour, it is a fire that will drive people from the East to the West. The first food the inhabitants of Paradise will partake of is the extra lobe of the whale’s liver. If the man’s fluid outstrips the woman’s, the child will resemble his father (2); if the woman’s fluid outstrips the man’s, the child will resemble his mother.”

ʿAbd Allah declared, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah. The Jews are a people given to calumny; if they learn of my embracing Islam before you question them about me, they will slander me.” (3)

The Jews then came, and the Prophet asked, “What sort of man is ʿAbd Allah ibn Salam among you?” They replied, “He is the best of us (4), the son of the best of us—our leader and the son of our leader.” He said, “What would you think if ʿAbd Allah ibn Salam were to accept Islam?” They answered (5), “May Allah protect him from that.” ʿAbd Allah then came out and declared, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” They retorted, “He is the worst of us, the son of the worst of us,” and they reviled him. He said, “This is what I feared, O Messenger of Allah.” (6)