Tubbaʿ then declared, “There is no path for me against this town; its ruin will not come about at my hands.” He therefore broke camp and set out for Yemen.

Yūsuf ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Salām narrated from his father: Tubbaʿ did not die before he acknowledged the Prophet ﷺ, for the Jews of Yathrib used to inform him about him; indeed, Tubbaʿ died a Muslim (1).

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd said: Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar narrated to us, and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Jaʿfar narrated to me from his father, who said: Al-Zubayr ibn Bāṭā—who was the most learned of the Jews—used to say, “I found a scroll that my father had kept hidden from me. It contained mention of Aḥmad, a prophet who will arise in the land of al-Qaraz, described in such-and-such terms.” After his father’s death, al-Zubayr spoke of it while the Prophet ﷺ had not yet been sent. But as soon as he heard that the Prophet ﷺ had appeared in Mecca, he went to that scroll, erased it, concealed the matter of the Prophet ﷺ and his description, and said, “He is not the one” (2).

Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar also said: (Al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn ʿUthmān narrated to me, from Makhrama ibn Sulaymān, from Kurayb, from Ibn ʿAbbās) (3): The Jews of Qurayẓa, al-Naḍīr, Fadak, and Khaybar had in their scriptures the description of the Prophet ﷺ before he was sent, and they knew that the place of his emigration would be Medina. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was born, the Jewish scholars said, “Aḥmad was born tonight; that star has risen.” And when he was commissioned they said, “Aḥmad has been sent; the star has risen.” They recognized this, acknowledged it, and described him, yet nothing held them back except envy and willful transgression (4).