Now, O unfortunate, wretched man without heart who says that Muhammad (UWBP) was only a clever person and then closes his eyes to that Sun of Truth! Of all his fifteen different kinds of miracle, you have thus far heard only a hundredth part of one kind, that relating to his predictions which have the certainty of ‘consensus in meaning.’ To discover future events through one’s own perspicacity and thus succeed in even one hundredth part of the Prophet’s (UWBP) predictions, one would have to be of the highest genius. Even if we merely called him a genius as you call him, could such a man have ever seen anything wrongly? Or could he have ever stooped to reporting it wrongly? Not to heed the word of such a hundredfold genius concerning happiness in this world and the next is therefore the sign of a hundredfold madness!
According to an authentic narration, the Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) said to Fatima: “You will be the first of my Family to join me [after my death].”1 Six months later, what he said took place.
He also told Abu Dharr: “You will be expelled from here [Medina], will live alone, and will die alone.”2 All this came true twenty years later.
Once, as he awakened in the house of Anas b. Malik’s aunt, Umm Haram, he smilingly said: “I saw my community waging war on the seas like kings sitting on thrones.”3 Umm Haram requested: “Pray that I too will be with them.” He said: “You shall be.” Forty years later she accompanied her husband, ‘Ubada b. Samit, on the conquest of Cyprus. She died there, and her grave has ever since been visited by the believers. Thus, what the Messenger (UWBP) foretold proved to be true.
Also according to an authentic narration, he declared: “From the tribe of Thaqif, a liar will claim prophethood, and a bloodthirsty tyrant will appear.”4 With this, he gave tidings of the infamous Mukhtar, who claimed prophethood, and of the barbarous Hajjaj, who killed a hundred thousand people.
Bukhari, Manaqib, 25; Muslim, Fada’il al-Sahaba,101; Ibn Maja, Jana’iz, 64; Musnad, vi, 240, 282, 283; Qadi Iyad, al-Shifa’, i, 340.
al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak, iii, 345; Qadi Iyad, al-Shifa’, i, 343; ‘Ali al-Qari, Sharh al-Shifa’, i, 700; al-‘Asqalani, al-Matalib al-‘Aliya, iv, 116 no: 4109; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa’l-Nihaya, v, 8-9; al-‘Asqalani, al-Isaba, iv, 64.
Bukhari, Ta’bir, 12; Jihad, 3, 8, 63, 75; Isti’dhan, 41; Muslim, ‘Imara, 160, 160; Abu Da’ud, Jihad, 9; Tirmidhi, Fada’il al-Jihad, 15; Nasa’i, Jihad, 40; Ibn Maja, Jihad, 10; Darimi, Jihad, 28; Muwatta’, Jihad, 39; Musnad, iii, 240, 264; al-Albani, Sahih al-Jami’ al-Saghir, vi, 24, no: 6620; al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak, iv, 556.
Muslim, Fada’il al-Sahaba, 229; Tirmidhi, Fitan, 44; Manaqib, 73; al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak, iii, 450; iv, 254.