they are watchers of the sun, they perform the prayer as soon as its appointed time comes (1), even were they standing atop a refuse heap; they gird their garments at mid-waist, wash their extremities in ablution, and their voices at night rise into the vault of heaven like the humming of bees (2).

ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatāda narrated, from Namla ibn Abī Namla, from his father, who said: The Jews of Banu Qurayza used to study the mention of the Messenger of God in their books and teach the children his description, his name, and the place of his migration. Yet when he appeared they envied, transgressed, and denied (3).

Abū Nuʿaym records in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa—through the narration of Sulaymān ibn Suhaym and Rumaīḥ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, both from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Khudrī, from his father—that I heard my father, Mālik ibn Sinān, say: “One day I went to the clan of ʿAbd al-Ashhal to converse with them—at that time we were in a truce during the war—when I heard Yūshaʿ the Jew saying, ‘The time is near for the emergence of a Prophet named Aḥmad; he will come forth from the Sanctuary.’

“Khalīfa ibn Thaʿlaba al-Ashhalī, mocking him, asked, ‘What is he like?’

“He replied, ‘A man who is neither short nor tall, with a reddish hue in his eyes, who wears a shamla (a wrap-around mantle) and rides a donkey, and this very town will be his place of migration.’

“I returned to my people, Banu Khudra, astonished that day at what Yūshaʿ had said, only to hear one of our men remark, ‘Is he the only one saying this? All the Jews (4) of Yathrib say the same.’”