It is narrated from Sayyiduna Hisham bin Hubaysh bin Khuwaylid (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) set out from Makkah to emigrate to Madinah, and with him (peace and blessings be upon him) were Sayyiduna Abu Bakr, Abu Bakr's freed slave Amir bin Fuhayrah, and their guide, Abdullah bin Urayqit al-Laythi. They all passed by the two tents of Umm Ma'bad al-Khuza'iyyah. She was a dignified and strong woman who would sit with her knees drawn up in the courtyard of the tent, giving travellers water to drink and food to eat. They asked her about buying meat and dates from her, but found none of that with her, and those people were struck by drought and in severe need. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) saw a goat in a corner of the tent and asked: "O Umm Ma'bad! What about this goat?" She said: "This is a goat that weakness has left behind the flock." He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "Does she have any milk?" She said: "She is far too weak for that." He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Do you permit me to milk her?" She said: "May my father and mother be sacrificed for you! If you see any milk in her, then milk her." So the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) called for her, passed his hand over her udder, mentioned the name of Allah Almighty, and supplicated for blessing in her goat. She spread her legs, gave milk abundantly and began to chew the cud. He (peace and blessings be upon him) called for a large vessel that could satisfy a whole group, and milked into it so much abundant, frothy milk that it filled up. He (peace and blessings be upon him) first gave Umm Ma'bad to drink until she was satisfied, then gave his companions to drink until they too were satisfied, and drank himself last. Then he milked into it again until the vessel was full, left it there with her, took her pledge of allegiance and departed from there. Only a little while had passed when her husband Abu Ma'bad came, driving thin, tottering goats in whose bones there was little marrow. When Abu Ma'bad saw the milk he was astonished and asked: "O Umm Ma'bad! Where did you get this milk, when the goats were far away in the pasture and there was no milk-giving goat in the house?" She said: "By Allah! It is not that; rather, a blessed man passed by us whose state was such and such." He said: "O Umm Ma'bad! Describe him to me." She said: "I saw a person whose beauty and handsomeness were evident, with a radiant face and fine character. Neither was his belly protruding, nor did he have the flaw of a small head. He was exceedingly handsome and well-proportioned. His eyes were deep black, his eyelashes long and thick; there was a depth, that is dignity, in his voice; his neck was long and raised; his beard was thick; his eyebrows were fine and joined. When he was silent, dignity settled upon him, and when he spoke, his grandeur and radiance rose high. From afar he was the most beautiful and attractive of people, and from near the most handsome and comely. His speech was sweet and clear, neither too little nor too much; his words were like a string of pearls falling one after another. He was of medium height: neither disliked for being too tall, nor overlooked by the eyes for being short. He was like a branch between two branches, the freshest of the three in appearance and the highest in worth and rank. He had companions who surrounded him; if he said something, they listened attentively, and if he gave a command, they hastened to carry it out. He was one served and thronged about, neither frowning nor given to idle talk." Abu Ma'bad said: "By Allah! This is that man of Quraysh about whom we were told what we were told. I intend to accompany him, and if I find any way to do so, I will certainly do it." In the morning a loud voice was heard in Makkah; the people were hearing the voice but could not see the one calling out, and he was saying: "May Allah, the Lord of the people, give the best of rewards to the two companions who alighted at the tents of Umm Ma'bad." "They both alighted with guidance and departed with it; so successful is the one who became the companion of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)." "O descendants of Qusayy! What great, unmatched deeds and what leadership Allah has withheld from you because of him!" "May the good fortune of his lot be blessed for Abu Bakr, that he gained the companionship of him (peace and blessings be upon him); and whomever Allah makes fortunate remains fortunate." "And may Banu Ka'b be blessed with the station of their woman, who sat at a place of rest for the believers." "Ask your sister about her goat and her vessel, for if you ask the goat, it too will bear witness." "He (peace and blessings be upon him) called for a barren goat, and it gave milk abundantly for him, its udder filled with pure, frothy milk." "So he (peace and blessings be upon him) left that goat with her as a sign for the one who milks, who will draw milk from it again and again." When Sayyiduna Hassan bin Thabit (may Allah be pleased with him) heard this, he composed these verses in reply to that caller: "Disappointed is the people from whom their Prophet has departed, and blessed are those to whom he journeys." "He (peace and blessings be upon him) departed from a people and their minds left them, and he alighted among another people with a renewed light." "Their Lord guided them through him (peace and blessings be upon him) after misguidance, so he (peace and blessings be upon him) showed them the way; and whoever follows the truth is rightly guided." "Can the misguided people who acted foolishly in their blindness, and the rightly guided who are guided by the one who guides, be equal?" "And upon the people of Yathrib have alighted those mounts of guidance which have opened the doors of good fortune for them." "He is a Prophet who sees what the people around him do not see, and he recites the Book of Allah in every place." "And if one day he tells of something unseen, its confirmation comes by the forenoon of the next day." The chain of this hadith is sahih (authentic), but the two Shaykhs did not record it. There are several proofs of its authenticity and of the truthfulness of its narrators. First, the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) stopping at these two tents is established by mass transmission (tawatur) through numerous sahih reports. Second, those who narrated this hadith in its proper form are the Bedouin desert-dwellers of those tents, who cannot be accused of fabricating hadith or of adding to it or omitting from it, and they took it word for word from Umm Ma'bad and Abu Ma'bad. Third, it has chains that are like taking by the hand, that is, the son from the father and the father from the grandfather, with no irsal (break) in it and no weakness in its narrators. Fourth, al-Hurr bin al-Sayyah al-Nakha'i took it from Abu Ma'bad just as his son took it from him. As for the chain that we have given on the authority of the Ka'bi narrators, it is a high ('ali) and sahih chain of these Bedouins, and we have also attained a high chain ('uluw) in the hadith of al-Hurr bin al-Sayyah.