Knowledge of the Unseen: The Death of the Najāshī and 'My Lord Killed Your Lord'

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The fifth category is knowledge of the unseen (عِلْم الْغَيْب) granted to the Prophet ﷺ. Here a distinction is needed. There is a ghayb that belongs to Allāh alone, shared with no one, the five keys of the unseen, when and where one will die, what the wombs hold, when the Hour comes, and more. And there is a relative ghayb, some of which may be disclosed to a prophet: عَالِمُ الْغَيْبِ فَلَا يُظْهِرُ عَلَىٰ غَيْبِهِ أَحَدًا ۝ إِلَّا مَنِ ارْتَضَىٰ مِن رَّسُولٍ (72:26–27). So did the Prophet ﷺ have ʿilm al-ghayb? The ultimate, unconditional ghayb, no; that is Allāh's alone, and he is told to say وَلَا أَعْلَمُ الْغَيْبَ, "I do not know the unseen" (6:50), just as وَمَا يَعْلَمُ جُنُودَ رَبِّكَ إِلَّا هُوَ, "none knows the armies of your Lord but He." Yet some ghayb hidden from us was disclosed to him, he saw the heavens, saw Jibrīl, saw the Garden and the Fire: لَقَدْ رَأَىٰ مِنْ آيَاتِ رَبِّهِ الْكُبْرَىٰ. The two truths are reconciled: particular unseen, yes; unconditional access, only Allāh.

❧The Najāshī's death

One morning the Prophet ﷺ, in Medina, summoned the people to the masjid and announced that a brother of theirs in distant Abyssinia, the Najāshī, a righteous servant (عَبْد صَالِح), had died, and they prayed the janāzah for him. Months later the caravans confirmed he had died on that very day.

❧Jerusalem, disclosed to his eyes

When a Qurashī who had seen Jerusalem challenged him to describe it after the Isrāʾ, he ﷺ said he grew more afraid than ever, until Jibrīl raised the city before his eyes, and no question was asked but that the city was turned this way and that so he could answer from it.

❧Muʾtah, seen as it happened

As Ibn ʿUmar narrated in Bukhārī, the Prophet ﷺ told them the news of the deaths of Zayd, then Jaʿfar, then Ibn Rawāḥah before any messenger arrived, weeping, describing each death in vivid detail as it unfolded, confirmed a week later.

"My Lord has killed your Lord." When the Sassanid emperor sent two spies to Medina posing as envoys, the Prophet ﷺ knew them for spies, never opened their letter, and told them to return the next day. Then he said: "Today my Rabb has killed your Rabb", for in their theology the emperor was a divine Rabb. That very day the emperor had been assassinated and his daughter had taken the throne, the last of the dynasty, and the two envoys accepted Islam.