Abū Sa'īd al-Khudrī told of Usaid b. Hudair saying that one night when he was reciting sūra al-Baqara (Qur’ān, 2) with his mare tied beside him it moved round in a circle, so he stopped reciting and it stopped moving. He resumed his recitation and it went round in a circle, so he stopped reciting and it stopped moving. Once more he recited and the mare moved round in a circle, so he left off reciting, for his son Yahyā was near it and he was afraid it might injure him. When he had moved him back he raised his head to the sky and saw something like a canopy with what seemed to be lamps in it, and when he told the Prophet of it in the morning, he said,“You should have kept on reciting, Ibn Hudair, you should have kept on reciting, Ibn Hudair.”He replied,“I was afraid, messenger of God, that it might trample on Yahyā who was near it, so I went to him, and when I raised my head to the sky and saw something like a canopy with what seemed to be lamps in it, I went out but could not see them.”He asked whether he knew what that was, and when he replied that he did not, he said,“Those were the angles who had drawn near to listen to your voice, and if you had continued reciting the people would have looked at them in the morning and they would not have concealed themselves from them.”(Bukhārī and Muslim, the wording being Bukhārī’s). Muslim has,“They went up into the air”instead of“I went out.”

Al-Barā said that when a man was reciting sūra al-Kahf (Qur’ān,18) with a horse tied with two ropes at his side a cloud overshadowed him, and as it began to come nearer and nearer his horse began to take fright. He went and mentioned that to the Prophet in the morning and he said,“That was the Shechina* which came down by reason of the Qur’ān.”*The word in Arabic is as-sakīna which may be translated calmness; but here it has the article which indicates something more precise. It may therefore here refer to the Jewish idea of the Shechina which indicates a divine visitation, (Bukhārī and Muslim.)

Abū Sa'īd b. al-Mu‘allā said:When I was praying in the mosque the Prophet called me and I did not answer him, but I went to him afterwards and explained that I had been praying, whereupon he asked me whether God had not said,“Respond to God and to the messenger when He calls you,”(Qur’ān, 8:24) adding,“Let me teach you the greatest sūra in the Qur’ān before you leave the mosque.”He then took me by the hand, and when we were about to go out I reminded him of saying he would teach me the greatest sūra in the Qur’ān. He said,“It is, ‘Praise be to God, the Lord of the universe’, (Qur'ān,1) which is the seven oft-repeated verses and the mighty Qur’ān’ (Qur’ān, 15:87) which has been brought to me.”Bukhārī transmitted it.