“I shall now tell you about myself: I am the Messiah, and I shall soon be granted permission to emerge. I shall then emerge and travel throughout the earth, visiting every town within forty nights, except Mecca and Taybah, for both are forbidden to me. Whenever I try to enter either of them (wāhidah—or: wāhid), an angel confronts me with a drawn sword in his hand and bars me from entering. At every approach to either city are angels guarding it.”

She said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ struck the pulpit with his staff and said:

“This is Taybah! This is Taybah! This is Taybah!” (meaning Medina). “Have I not told you this?”

The people replied, “Yes.”

He said: “Tamīm’s account pleased me because it agreed with what I had been telling you about him and about Medina and Mecca.”

Recorded by Muslim (8/205) and Ahmad (6/413 and 418), as well as by al-Tayālisī (2/218–219) in abridged form, Abū Dāwūd (2/214–215), Hanbal (44/2–45/1), and Ibn Mandah (98/1–2), through various chains of transmission from ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī, who narrated it from her.

It was also recorded in abridged form by al-Tirmidhī (2254), Ibn Mājah (2/506–508), and al-Ājurrī (pp. 376–379), but they did not mention Mecca. This is also a version recorded by Imam Ahmad (6/373–374) and Ibn Mandah (97/2).

The third is ʿĀʾishah, may Allah be pleased with her. In Ahmad’s last-mentioned version, al-Shaʿbī said:

“I then met al-Muharrar ibn Abī Hurayrah and related Fātimah bint Qays’s hadith to him. He said: