is belief, and what is goodness? Explain them.’ The Messenger explained them, and the Companions gathered there both received valuable instruction, and saw the person clearly. Although he seemed like a traveller, he displayed no sign of a journey. He suddenly rose and disappeared. God’s Messenger then said: ‘Gabriel did that in order to teach you!’”(265)

Also, the authorities on Hadith relate through certain and authentic narrations of the degree of ‘consensus in meaning’: “The Companions saw Gabriel with God’s Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) many times in the form of Dihya, who was very handsome.” For instance, ‘Umar, Ibn ‘Abbas, Usama b. Zayd, Harith, ‘A’isha al-Siddiqa, and Umm Salama established and related certainly: “We frequently saw Gabriel with the God’s Messenger in the form of Dihya.”(266) Is it at all possible that such people would say that they had seen him if they had not?

Also, the conqueror of Persia, Sa‘d b. Abi Waqqas, who was one of the ten promised Paradise, relates in an authentic narration: “At the Battle of Uhud we saw two white-dressed persons either side of God’s Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace), guarding him like sentries. We understood that they were the angels,

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(265) Bukhari, Iman 37; Muslim, Iman 1-7.
(266) Bukhari, Fada’il al-Ashab 30; al-Haythami, Majma’ al-Zawa’id ix, 276-7; Ahmad b. Hanbal, Fada’il al-Sahaba (Tahqiq: Vasiyyullah) no: 1817, 1853, 1918; Musnad i, 212; al-‘Asqalani, al-Isaba i, 598.