“His prophecies were written after the events”

The objection

“His prophecies were written after the events.”

In its strongest terms: the hadith collections were written down in the ninth century, some two centuries after the death of the Prophet ﷺ; that of al-Bukhari was completed before 870 (research file v1, part 4). Yet many of the prophecies they contain concern earlier events: the fall of Chosroes in 628, the death of Ammar at Siffin in 657, the peace concluded by al-Hasan in 661. A prophecy recorded after the event proves nothing: it could have been written by someone who knew the outcome.

The answer

The prophecies fulfilled after the collection

The objection falls of itself when the event follows the book that foretells it: the text came before the facts. These are the strongest prophecies.

The fire of the Hijaz. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The Hour will not come until a fire comes out of the land of the Hijaz and lights up the necks of the camels at Bosra” (Bukhari 7118). The collection of al-Bukhari was completed before 870. The fire appears on Friday 5 Jumada II 654 (30 June 1256), east of Medina, facing Uhud; the rock flows from it until it is like lead, people write by its light at night, its glow is seen from Mecca, and it lasts more than a month (Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 372-373; Ibn Kathir, al-Nihaya, I, 26-27). Ibn Kathir adds that its occurrence in 654 is known by mass transmission (tawatur) (Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 372). Nearly four centuries separate the text from the event.

The glow seen at Bosra rests on a narrower testimony: a qadi, who had it from his father, who had it from Bedouins he does not name (Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 372-373). We give the glow as a testimony, the fire as a fact.

Constantinople. Asked which city would be taken first, Constantinople or Rome, the Prophet ﷺ answers: “the city of Heraclius will be taken first” (Ibn Kathir, al-Nihaya, I, 79-80). Al-Hakim declares this hadith authentic, and Ahmad relates it in his Musnad, a collection of the ninth century (al-Salihi, X, 130; research file v1, part 4). The city is taken on Tuesday 20 Jumada I 857 (29 May 1453), “after a great battle”; Ibn Taghribirdi, then living in Cairo, records the arrival of the sultan’s envoy who came to announce the conquest (Ibn Taghribirdi, XVI, 70-71). Rome is still to come.

There is better than an early collection: a dated book that is still waiting. Ibn Kathir, who died in 774 AH (1373), quotes these hadiths and holds the city to be unconquered (Ibn Kathir, al-Nihaya, I, 79-80, 86, 97). The text is therefore written, commented upon and awaited eighty years before the event. The praise of the emir who will take it, applied to Sultan Mehmed II, is a reading: we do not build on it.

The half-day. The Prophet ﷺ said: “I hope that my community will obtain from its Lord a reprieve of half a day”; half a day, Sa’d explains, is five hundred years (Abu Dawud 4350). Ibn Kathir writes: “Abu Dawud alone reports it and its chain is good; this is one of the proofs of prophethood”, the span not ruling out more (Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 371). The collection of Abu Dawud dates from the ninth century; the year 500 AH (1106-1107) came after it. It is a hope, and the figure comes from Sa’d: we give it with that limit.

The predictions of the Qur’an, recited before the adversary

The prophecies of the Qur’an are fixed in the text before the event (research file v1, part 4). Better still: they were known to the adversaries before they came to pass.

The sura is Meccan. Abu Bakr made a wager on this verse with the chiefs of Quraysh (Tirmidhi 3193; Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 240): no one wagers on a text written after the fact. The Persians had taken Jerusalem in 614; Heraclius counter-attacks in 622, wins at Nineveh in 627, and peace comes in 628 (research file v1, part 4).

• Abu Lahab (sura 111): the sura foretells, early in the Meccan period, that he will burn in the Fire; he dies an unbeliever some ten years later, without even feigning a conversion that would have refuted the Qur’an (research file v1, part 4; Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 235).
• Badr: “The multitude will be routed, and they will turn their backs” (54:45), a Meccan verse, which the Prophet ﷺ recites on the very day of the battle (Bukhari 4875; Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 235).
• The entry into Mecca (48:27): promised in the year of Hudaybiya, when the Muslims had just been turned back. Umar is taken aback: “did you not tell us that we would come to the House and circle it?”; the Prophet ﷺ answers him: “did I tell you it would be this year?” (Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 237). The promise was known before its fulfilment, the following year.

What the date of the collection does not change

For the prophecies fulfilled before the writing down, the date of the collection takes nothing away from an authentic prophecy: the collections are the outcome of chains of transmission that the scholars of hadith examined (research file v1, part 4). One example shows that these chains did not serve those in power: the prophecy that Ammar would be killed by “the transgressing party” (Muslim 2916) embarrassed the Umayyads, and it was transmitted all the same (research file v1, part 4).

What the objection gets right

The collections do date from the ninth century. For the prophecies fulfilled before they were written down, the text alone does not prove that it came before the event: the proof rests on the chain of transmission. The site says so, and puts first the prophecies whose priority does not depend on the chains: those of the Qur’an, recited before the adversary, and those of the hadiths fulfilled after the collection.

Further reading

• The prophecies fulfilled after his death ﷺ, from Constantinople to the fire of the Hijaz: Fulfilled after him, down to the classical authors.
• The Romans, Abu Lahab, Badr, the entry into Mecca: The Qur’an’s predictions.
• The signs still to come: The signs of the Hour, down to our day.
• The neighbouring objection: “His prophecies are vague, or refuted”.
• All the objections: Objections answered.

Sources for this page

• Qur’an: Tanzil text (Uthmani); translation of the meaning by this site.
• The fire of the Hijaz: Bukhari 7118.
• The half-day: Abu Dawud 4350.
• The wager of Abu Bakr: Tirmidhi 3193.
• Badr: Bukhari 4875.
• Ammar: Muslim 2916.
• Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat al-Nabi ﷺ (extract from al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya), ed. al-Sayyid Ibrahim Amin Muhammad, al-Maktaba al-Tawfiqiyya, Cairo, I, 235, 237, 240, 371-373.
• Ibn Kathir, al-Nihaya fi l-fitan wa-l-malahim, ed. Muhammad Ahmad Abd al-Aziz, Dar al-Jil, Beirut, 1988, I, 26-27, 79-80, 86, 97.
• Al-Salihi al-Shami, Subul al-huda wa-l-rashad, ed. Adil Abd al-Mawjud and Ali Mu’awwad, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, Beirut, 1993, X, 130.
• Ibn Taghribirdi, al-Nujum al-zahira fi muluk Misr wa-l-Qahira, Wizarat al-Thaqafa wa-l-Irshad al-Qawmi, Cairo, XVI, 70-71.
• Research file “Annonces du Prophète ﷺ”, v1.0, 14 October 2026, part 4.