when you hear of him, follow him.’ From that moment my only concern was to reach Mecca and ask, ‘Is there any news?’ They would answer, ‘No.’ (So I would return to my family and waylay the passing caravans, asking them, and they too would say, ‘No.’)(1) I was sitting one day when a rider passed by. I asked, ‘Where have you come from?’ He said, ‘From Mecca.’ I said, ‘Has anything happened there?’ He replied, ‘Yes. A man has turned away from the idols of his people and is calling them to something else.’ I exclaimed, ‘That is the man I am seeking!’ I tightened the saddle of my mount, hurried to him, and accepted Islam.(2)

ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn Saʿīd narrated: Mūsā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān told us, from Ibn Jurayj, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās—and Muqātil, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk, from Ibn ʿAbbās—that eight bishops from Najrān came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, among them al-ʿĀqib and al-Sayyid. Thereupon Allah the Exalted revealed: ‘Say, “Come, let us summon our sons and your sons, our women and your women, ourselves and yourselves …”’ [Āl ʿImrān 3:61]. They said, ‘Postpone the matter for three days.’ They then went to the Banū Qurayẓah, al-Naḍīr, and Banū Qaynuqāʿ and sought their counsel. They advised them to make peace with him and not to invoke mutual imprecation, for he is the Prophet we find described in the Torah and the Gospel. So they concluded peace with the Prophet ﷺ for one thousand garments in Ṣafar, another one thousand garments in Rajab, and a sum of silver coins.(3)

Yūnus ibn Bukayr also reported, through Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ, from Yūnus ibn Abī Sālim, from ʿIkrimah, that a group from the People of the Scripture had believed in Muhammad ﷺ before he was commissioned; but when