“This is the Prophet who has been sent; he comes with the revealed truth,”1 telling of Muhammad’s (UWBP) messengership.
Another is the well-known incident which caused ‘Abbas b. Mardas to accept Islam: there was an idol called Dimar, which one day called out: “Dimar was worshipped before the declaration of Muhammad; that misguidance can no longer continue.”2
Before he accepted Islam, ‘Umar heard an animal sacrificed to an idol exclaim: “O sacrificer, the means of success are at hand: an eloquent man proclaiming, ‘No god but God!’”3
There are very many more examples like these, which have been accepted as authentic and narrated in reliable books.
And just as soothsayers, gnostics, invisible jinns, and even idols and sacrifices told of Muhammad’s (UWBP) messengership, and each instance was the cause of people coming to believe in him, so too inscriptions on stones over and in graves, and on gravestones, like “Muhammad, a worker of righteousness, the trustworthy,” were the means of some people coming to believe.4 Because, in the time shortly before Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace) lived, there were only seven men bearing that name, and not one of them deserved the epithet of righteous and trustworthy.5
The Third Kind
These are irhasat including the wondrous events which occurred at the time of, and in conjunction with, the birth of God’s Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace). There were also events that occurred before his prophetic mission which were miracles. They were many and we shall mention a few examples that became famous, have been accepted by the authorities on Hadiths, and whose authenticity have been established.
The First: On the night of the Prophet’s (UWBP) birth, both his mother, and the mothers of ‘Uthman b. al-‘As and ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Awf, who
Bayhaqi, Dala’il al-Nubuwwa, ii, 255; Halabi, al-Sirat al-Halabiya, i, 325; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa’l-Nihaya, ii, 337; al-Haythami, Majma’ al-Zawa’id, viii, 242; ‘Ali al-Qari, Sharh al-Shifa’, i, 747; Suyuti, al-Khasa’is al-Kubra, i, 252-71.
al-Haythami, Majma’ al-Zawa’id, viii, 246; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa’l-Nihaya, ii, 341-2; Bayhaqi, Dala’il al-Nubuwwa, i, 118; al-Shifa’ (Tahqiq: M. Emin Kara Ali et al.), i, 598.
Bukhari, Manaqib al-Ansar, 35; al-Sa’ati, al-Fath al-Rabbani, xx, 2030.
Qadi Iyad, al-Shifa’ i, 467; ‘Ali al-Qari, Sharh al-Shifa’ i, 749; Halabi, al-Sirat al-Halabiya i, 354.
Halabi, al-Sirat al-Halabiya i, 131-4.