spond to his virtue in greatness / Mere mention of his name would have animated decayed bones.”
The Third: Scholars like Imam Bayhaqi relate from ‘Abdullah b. ‘Ubaydullah al-Ansari: ‘Abdullah said: “I was present when Thabit b. Qays b. Shammas fell as a martyr in the Battle of Yamama and was buried. As he was being put in his grave, a voice suddenly came from him, saying: ‘Muhammad is the Messenger of God, Abu Bakr is the Veracious [Siddiq], ‘Umar, the martyr, and ‘Uthman, pious and merciful.’ [^274] We uncovered him and looked: he was dead and lifeless, yet he was foretelling ‘Umar’s martyrdom even before he had succeeded to the Caliphate.
[^274]: Qāḍī Iyāḍ, al-Shifā’, i, 320; ‘Alī al-Qārī, Sharḥ al-Shifā’, i, 649; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa’l-Nihāya, vi, 157-8.
The Fourth: Imam Tabarani, and Abu Nu‘aym in his Dala’il al-Nubuwwa, relate from Nu‘man b. Bashir: “Zayd b. Kharija suddenly dropped down dead in the marketplace. We took his body to his house. That evening between sunset and the night prayer, while the women were weeping all around him, he exclaimed: ‘Silence! Silence!’ Then, saying: ‘Muhammad is God’s Messenger! Peace be upon you, O Messenger of God!’, he spoke most eloquently for a while. We looked: he was dead, without life.” [^275]
[^275]: Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa’l-Nihāya, viii, 291 (through various lines); al-Haythamī, Majma‘ al-Zawā’id, v, 179-80 (through two lines of transmission).
Thus, if lifeless corpses affirm his prophethood and the living do not, for sure they are more dead than the dead and more lifeless than corpses!
As regards angels appearing and serving God’s Messenger (UWBP), and jinns believing in him and obeying him, these facts have been reported numerously and unanimously. They have been stated explicitly in many verses of the Qur’an. [^276] At the Battle of Badr, according to the Qur’an, [^277] five thousand angels served him as soldiers in the front line, like the Companions. Indeed, those angels acquired distinction among the angels, like the men who fought in the battle. [^278] There are two aspects to be considered in this matter:
[^276]: See, Qur’ān, 3:123-5; 72:1-2; 46:29.
[^277]: See, Qur’ān, 3:123-5.
[^278]: Bukhārī, Maghāzī, 11.
The First is the fact that the existence of the different sorts of jinn and angels is as definite as that of the varieties and species of animals and human beings, and that they have relations with us. We have proved this decisively in the Twenty-Ninth Word as certainly as two plus two equals four, and we refer their proof to that Word.