Yes, he said: “On the Bull and the Fish” and alluded to an elevated truth that would  be  understood  in the future, and hinted  at the earth’s duty of motion and journeying, and the heavenly constellations being idle and without guests in regard to the sun, and that the  constellations which truly work are in the earth’s annual orbit and that it is the earth which journeys and performs duties in the constellations.

And God knows best what is right.

The extraordinary and  unreasonable  stories  in some  Islamic books  are  either isra’iliyat, or they are allegories, or they are the interpretations of the Hadith scholars, which careless people have supposed to be Hadiths and have attributed them to God’s Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace).

O our Sustainer! Do not take us to task if we forget or do wrong.(2:282)

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.(2:32)

THE SECOND QUESTION is about the People of the Cloak.

My brother! Regarding your question about the People of the Cloak, only one of the many instances of wisdom concerning it will be explained, as follows:

Many mysteries and instances of wisdom are found in God’s Noble Messenger

(Upon whom be blessings and peace) covering ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him) and  Fatima (May God be pleased with her) and Hasan and Husayn (May God be pleased with them) with the blessed cloak he wore, and his praying for them with the verse,

[And God only wishes] to remove all abomination from you, members of the

Family, and to make you pure and spotless.(33:33)5

I shall not discuss the mysteries, but one instance of wisdom connected with the function of messengership is this:

God’s  Noble  Messenger  (UWBP)  saw  with  the  eye  of  prophethood,  which penetrated the Unseen and beheld the future, that thirty or forty years later serious strife would erupt among the Companions and the generation that succeeded them, and that blood  would be spilt. He witnessed that three of the people under his cloak would be the most distinguished of them.

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5   This narration has various lines of transmission, see, Muslim, Fada’il al-Sahaba, 61; Tirmidhi, Manaqib, 60; Musnad, i, 330; iv, 107; vi, 292, 296, 298, 304; al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak, ii, 416; iii, 147; al-Haythami, Majma‘ al-Zawa’id, ix, 166, 169; al-Suyuti, al-Durr al-Manthur, v, 197; Kandahlawi, Hayat al-Sahaba, iv, 105.