in the Torah and the Gospel, and even before that, as Imam Ahmad narrated in his Musnad from al-‘Irbād ibn Sāriya that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“Indeed, I am Allah’s servant, recorded as the Seal of the Prophets while Adam was still lying in his clay. I shall tell you of its beginnings: the supplication of my father Abraham, the glad tidings given by Jesus, and my mother’s vision when she gave birth to me: she saw what appeared to be a light coming from her, illuminating the palaces of Syria.”

There is also the hadith of Maysara al-Fajr:

“I asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, when were you a prophet?’—in another wording, ‘When were you recorded as a prophet?’ He replied, ‘While Adam was between spirit and body.’”

This is the wording of the hadith. As for the statement:

“I was a prophet while Adam was between water and clay,”

it has no basis. No hadith scholar has narrated it with this wording, and it is false: Adam was not between water and clay, since clay consists of water and earth. Rather, when Allah created Adam’s body, before breathing the spirit into it, He recorded and decreed the prophethood of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Likewise, it is established in the two Sahīh collections that Ibn Mas‘ūd said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, who is truthful and whose truthfulness is confirmed, told us:

“Each of you is formed in his mother’s womb as a drop of fluid for forty days, then becomes a clot for a similar period, then a lump of flesh for a similar period. Then the angel is sent to him and instructed to record four things. He is told, ‘Record his provision, his deeds, his lifespan, and whether he will be wretched or blessed.’ Then he breathes the spirit into him.”

It has also been narrated that his name was written on the leg of the Throne and the doors of Paradise. But what comparison is there between being recorded and decreed and existing in reality?

The hadiths narrated on this subject are of this kind: for example, that he was a light floating around the Throne, or a star rising in the sky, and the like, as mentioned by