“The Prophet’s Perspiration Gave Off Light”

by GF Haddad – Safar 1426

Our Mother the Faqīha of the world, Ā’isha al-Nabawiyya said, Allah be well-pleased with her:

I was spinning while the Messenger of Allāh (peace be upon him) was mending his sandals and I was observing him. His forehead began to perspire and his perspiration gave off light. I gaped in astonishment. He looked at me and said: “What is the matter? Why are you gaping?” I said: “Messenger of Allāh! I looked at you and your forehead began to perspire and your perspiration gave off light. If Abū Kabīr al-Hudhalī had seen you he would have known that you are most deserving of his poetry.” The Prophet  asked: “And what does he say, ‘Ā’isha, this Abū Kabīr al-Hudhalī?” She said: “He says:

Exempt of any remain of menses,
born of hale nurse unsoiled,
Were you to look at his facial traits
– they beam like a white lightning-cloud!

Wa mubarra’in min kulli ghubbari haydatin
wafasādi murdi‘atin wadā’in mughīli
Fa’idhā nazarta ilā asirrati wajhihi
baraqat kabarqi-l-‘āridi-l-mutahallili

Hearing this, the Prophet rose and kissed me between the eyes, saying: “Allah grant you goodness on my behalf, ‘A’isha! You make me happier than I could make myself.”

Narrated through al-Bukhārī by Abū Nu‘aym in Hilyat al-Awliyā’ (1985 ed. 2:45-46), al-Khat īb with two more chains in Tārīkh Baghdād (13:252-253), Ibn ‘Asākir (3:307-309 and 59:424) through al-Khat. īb’s and Abū Nu‘aym’s three chains, and al-Bayhaqī in al-Sunan al-Kubrā (7:422 #15204) and Dalā’il al-Nubuwwa cf. al-Ghazzālī’s Ih yā’ (3:126-127) and al-Suyūtī’s Khas. ā’is. (1:115). Al-Mizzī narrated this hadīth in Tahdhīb al-Kamāl (28:318) as an example of a rare, lone-narrated report that comes only through the reliable Khārijī Imām, genealogist, philologist, and centenarian historian Ma‘mar ibn al-Muthannā Abū ‘Ubayda al-Taymī al-Bas. rī. The verses are cited in Abū Kabīr al-Hudhalī’s chapter in Dīwān al-Hamāsa.

That the perspiration-beads of the Prophet  were luminous is confirmed by the hadīth of Anas in the Sahīh: “He was rosy-colored and his perspiration seemed like pearls” (kāna azhar al-lawn ka’anna ‘araqahu al-lu’lu’). Narrated by Muslim, Ahmad, and al-Dārimī.