English Translation

Hayw ibn Shurayh and Yazid ibn Abd Rabbihi narrated to us, they said: Baqiyya narrated to us, he said: Bahir ibn Sa'd narrated to me, from Khalid ibn Ma'dan, from Ibn Amr al-Sulami, from Utbah ibn Abd al-Sulami, that he narrated to them that a man asked the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, saying: 'How was the beginning of your affair, O Messenger of Allah?' He said: 'My wet-nurse was of Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr. I went out, I and a son of hers, among some young lambs of ours, and we had taken no provisions with us. I said: O my brother, go and bring us provisions from our mother. So my brother went off, and I remained with the lambs. Then two white birds came, like two vultures. One of them said to his companion: Is it he? He said: Yes. Then the two of them came rushing toward me, took hold of me, laid me down on my back, split open my belly, then drew out my heart and split it open, and extracted from it two black clots. Then one of them said to his companion' - Yazid said in his account - 'Bring me water of snow, and they washed my insides with it. Then he said: Bring me water of hail, and they washed my heart with it. Then he said: Bring me tranquility, and he poured it into my heart. Then one of them said to his companion: Stitch it up. So he stitched it and sealed it with the seal of prophethood.' And Hayw said in his account: 'Stitch it up, so he stitched it, and seal it with the seal of prophethood.' Then one of them said to his companion: 'Set him on one side of a scale, and set a thousand of his community on the other side.' [He said:] 'Then I saw myself looking at the thousand above me, fearing that some of them might fall upon me.' Then he said: 'If his community were weighed against him, he would outweigh them.' Then the two of them departed and left me, and I was overcome with intense fear. Then I went to my mother and told her what had befallen me, and she feared that I had been afflicted [by jinn]. She said: I place you in Allah's protection. So she saddled a camel of hers, and' - Yazid said - 'she set me upon the saddle and rode behind me, until we reached my mother.' She [the wet-nurse] said: 'Have I fulfilled my trust and my duty toward you?' and she told her what had happened to me, but it did not alarm her; rather she said: 'Indeed, I saw a light come out of me that illuminated the palaces of Syria.'