Waraqah ibn Nawfal: The Christian Scholar Who Confirmed the First Revelation

Waraqah ibn Nawfal ibn Asad ibn Abd al-Uzza was a Christian scholar of Mecca, a cousin of Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, and the man both Khadijah and Prophet Muhammad ﷺ turned to for an authoritative reading of the first revelation. He had studied Christian scripture and knew Hebrew script well enough to copy from the Bible in it, and he died within a short time of confirming to Muhammad that what had come to him was the same revelation once given to Moses. In hadith reports transmitted through Aisha, the Prophet is recorded saying that he saw Waraqah after his death in Paradise, dressed in white.

A Seeker Before the Revelation

Waraqah belonged to a small circle of Meccans, including Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl, Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith, and Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh, who had grown dissatisfied with the idol-worship of their people and sought a more authentic faith. Ibn Ishaq's narration, preserved by Ibn Kathir, states that all of these men except Zayd adopted Christianity; Waraqah among them.

Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah sets out the exact family relationship: Khadijah's grandfather, Asad ibn Abd al-Uzza, had three sons — Muttalib, Khuwaylid (Khadijah's father), and Nawfal, whose son was Waraqah. Nawfal was therefore Khadijah's paternal uncle, and Waraqah her first cousin. Great Women of Islam records that in his old age he gradually lost his eyesight.

Even before the revelation to Muhammad, Waraqah had reason to expect a prophet's coming. Khadijah had told him of what her employee Maysara reported after a trading journey to Syria — that a monk had recognised something extraordinary in the young Muhammad, and that Maysara had seen two angels shading him along the road. Waraqah told her, "If this is true, Khadija, then Muhammad is the prophet of this nation. I learned that a prophet was expected for this nation, and this is his time." Ibn Ishaq preserves several poems attributed to Waraqah from this period, in which he speaks of having waited long for the fulfilment of what Khadijah had related to him, and of his hope to live to see it and to be among the first to support the one who was coming.

It was this same confirmation from Waraqah, together with Maysara's own report of the journey, that led Khadijah to consider marrying Muhammad. Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah, citing Ibn Hisham's al-Sirah, records that Khadijah's conviction of Muhammad's nobility rested on the two accounts together — Maysara's of what he had seen on the road, and Waraqah's judgement on hearing it — and that she sent her friend Nafisah bint Munabbih to propose marriage on the strength of it, some three months after his return from Syria.

Confirming the First Revelation

When the first revelation came to Muhammad in the cave at Hira and he returned home shaken, telling Khadijah, "I fear for myself," she took him to her elderly and by then blind cousin. "Cousin," she said, "listen to your nephew." Waraqah asked Muhammad what he had seen, and upon hearing the account replied, "This was the angel Gabriel, who used to come down to Moses. How I wish I were a young man again! I hope I am still alive when your people exile you." When Muhammad asked in surprise whether they were to exile him, Waraqah answered, "Yes — no one has ever received what you have received without being treated as an enemy. If I am alive when your time comes, I will give you every help."

Ibn Ishaq's fuller narration of this same episode, transmitted through Ubayd ibn Umayr al-Laythi and preserved by Ibn Kathir, adds that Khadijah went to Waraqah first, on her own, and told him what Muhammad had reported to her; it was only afterward, when Muhammad had finished that month's period of devotion and gone as he always did to circumambulate the Ka'bah, that he met Waraqah there in person, performing the same rite. Waraqah asked him directly, "Nephew, tell me what you saw and heard," and on hearing the account said, "By Him who bears my soul in His hand, you certainly will be the Prophet of this nation... You will certainly be called a liar, reviled, sent into exile and fought. If I live till that time, I will give God my help." He then bent down and kissed Muhammad on the top of his head.

A related account, transmitted with a chain Ibn Kathir describes as excellent, has Khadijah sending Abu Bakr to accompany Muhammad to Waraqah on a later occasion, when Muhammad described hearing a voice calling his name that frightened him into fleeing outside. Waraqah told him not to flee but to remain and listen, and when Muhammad returned having heard the opening words of what would become Surah al-Fatiha, Waraqah told him, "Rejoice, then rejoice again. I bear witness that you are he of whom the son of Mary spoke. You are a Prophet from God. If I live that long, I will fight along with you."

Death

Ibn Ishaq's narration states that Waraqah died not long after these events, and that the revelation to Muhammad then waned for a period, leaving him in distress until it resumed. Ibn Kathir observes that what is recorded of Waraqah's response to the first revelation "constitutes credence in what had occurred, faith in the revelation that had come, and good intent for the future," and treats his death as following shortly afterward.

The Prophet's Testimony to His Standing

Several hadith address directly what became of Waraqah, a question his death as a Christian, before the wider mission became public, might otherwise leave open. Imam Ahmad transmits, through a chain Ibn Kathir calls good, that Aisha reported Khadijah asking the Prophet about Waraqah, to which he replied, "I saw him, and on him I saw white clothing — and if he were among the people of the Fire, he would not have on white clothing." A further report, transmitted through Jabir ibn Abdullah, has the Prophet say, "I saw him, and I saw on him white clothing. I observed him in the heart of Paradise, and he was wearing a silken robe." A third report, from Abu Bakr al-Bazzar, transmits the Prophet's instruction: "Do not revile Waraqah; I have seen a garden or two for him." Ibn Kathir notes variously good and less complete chains for these reports, and records them as the tradition's considered answer to the question of Waraqah's standing, rather than leaving it unaddressed.

Legacy

Waraqah ibn Nawfal occupies a distinctive place in the sira: a learned outsider to the new revelation, whose scriptural knowledge was nonetheless the first authoritative voice to name what had happened to Muhammad in the cave at Hira, and whose personal end the Prophet himself later addressed directly rather than leaving to speculation. The tradition's treatment of him — confirming, plainly and repeatedly, that he was seen in Paradise — is recorded here as the classical sources give it.

References and Further Reading

Primary Islamic Sources

• Sahih al-Bukhari 3, Kitab Bad' al-Wahy — the first revelation and Waraqah's identification of it, and his prediction that the Prophet would be exiled
• Ibn Ishaq, as transmitted by Ibn Kathir, on the authority of Ubayd ibn Umayr al-Laythi — the fuller narration of Khadijah's visit to Waraqah and the subsequent meeting between Waraqah and Muhammad at the Ka'bah
• Ibn Ishaq, as transmitted by Ibn Kathir — the account of the Prophet's vision of Waraqah in Paradise, transmitted through Aisha and through Jabir ibn Abdullah

Classical Islamic Sources

• Ibn Kathir, Ismail ibn Umar. Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya [English translation]. [Compiled c. 1373 CE]
• Ibn Hisham, recension of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah — cited in Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah for Khadijah's proposal of marriage resting on Maysara's account and Waraqah's confirmation of it; not read directly for this article
• Al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir. Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk. [Completed c. 915 CE]

Academic and Scholarly Sources

• Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953.
• Guillaume, Alfred, trans. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955.
• Peters, Francis E. Muhammad and the Origins of Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
• Ghadanfar, Mahmood Ahmad. Great Women of Islam. Riyadh: Darussalam, 2001.

Further Reading

• Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1983.
• Haykal, Muhammad Husayn. The Life of Muhammad. Translated by Isma'il Razi al-Faruqi. Indianapolis: North American Trust Publications, 1976.