Our Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was granted every kind of “miracle and extraordinary occurrence.” As for knowledge, reports of the unseen, hearing, and sight, examples include his accounts of the earlier prophets and their peoples, his conversations with those prophets and his experiences with them, and his accounts of people other than prophets, whether friends of Allah or others. These agree with what the People of the Book possess and have inherited through mass transmission or otherwise, without his having learned it from them.
Likewise, his reports concerning divine lordship, the angels, Paradise, and Hell agree with those of the prophets before him, without his having learned from them. Their agreement with what was transmitted from the prophets can sometimes be established through the widely available scriptures in their possession and other accounts transmitted on a mass scale, and sometimes through knowledge held by select scholars among them. In matters such as these, the testimony of the People of the Book may be sought. This is among the wise purposes of allowing them to remain upon payment of the jizya. This is not the place to discuss that in detail.
His reports of matters beyond ordinary perception, both past and present, thus belong to the category of “extraordinary knowledge.” The same applies to his reports of future events, such as the dominion of his community, the fall of the Persian and Roman empires, fighting against the Turks, and thousands upon thousands of other reports he gave.
Some of these are recorded in works on “the proofs of prophethood,” “the Messenger’s biography,” and “his virtues,” as well as works of “Quranic commentary,” “hadith,” and “military campaigns.” Examples include Dalā’il al-Nubuwwa (The Proofs of Prophethood) by Abū Nuʿaym and by al-Bayhaqī, Ibn Ishāq’s biography of the Prophet, hadith works containing chains of transmission such as the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, compiled collections such as Sahīh al-Bukhārī, and other works, including material that