as the sound hadiths and historical reports indicate. Praising him ﷺ with verses such as: “For among your generosity is the whole world and its twin, and among your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen,” openly contradicts the very testimony that Muhammad ﷺ is Allah’s servant. He himself— as Allah quotes him— said: “If I possessed knowledge of the unseen I would have secured much good for myself, and no evil would have touched me.” He likewise reproved the slave-girl who was mourning those killed at Badr and then exclaimed, “We have among us a prophet who knows what will happen tomorrow.” The Prophet ﷺ told her, “Do not say that; say what you were saying before.”(1) For this reason the Mother of the Believers Aisha said, in a report found in the two Sahihs, “Whoever claims that Muhammad ﷺ knows what will occur tomorrow has forged a monstrous lie against Allah.” If such is the verdict on someone who merely alleges that he ﷺ knows tomorrow’s events, what of the one who claims that part of his knowledge encompasses the knowledge of the Preserved Tablet and the Pen? No wonder he ﷺ warned us against ghuluww (excess) in praising and exalting him, for it was the very cause of earlier nations’ ruin. He said, “Beware of ghuluww in religion, for those before you were only destroyed by their ghuluww in religion.”(2) The other quality affirmed by the testimony is that he ﷺ is a messenger specially chosen by Allah, favored with revelation, and granted insight into certain unseen matters. This obligates believing in everything he ﷺ has authentically conveyed—whether rulings or reports of the unseen—whether or not it agrees with one’s intellect. Whoever does not adopt this stance has not truly believed that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; his testimony will not benefit him, even if he fasts, prays, and claims to be Muslim. (1) Reported by al-Bukhari. (2) Reported by Muslim.