Fifth: The Miracle of the Unseen

Ibn Taymiyyah said in Sharh al-‘Aqeedah al-Asfahaaniyyah (1/202):

Of the prerequisites to prophethood, is that there must be some foretelling of the unseen, told to the prophet by Allaah The Almighty. If he does not tell of the unseen, he is not a prophet.

There have been about a thousand reports from the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam,  telling of the unseen. The judge ‘Abd Ar-Rahman Al-’Eeji said in al-Mawaaqif fi ‘Ilm al-Kalaam (1/356), enumerating the ways to prove the Prophet’s, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam,  truthful claim to prophethood:

Seventh: His foretelling of the unseen. This is found in the Quran and in the authentic narrations. Whoever looks into this will find many such evidences.

Abu al-‘Ala’ al-Qushayri composed a book, called Ma fil-Quran min Dalaa’il an-Nubuwwah, regarding what is found in the Quran of such proofs of prophethood.

In the Surah entitled Al-Fat-h [The victory], there are a number of obvious statements of the unseen, like the promise of conquering Khaybar to the people of al-Hudaybiyah—to the exclusion of all other people—then the promise fulfilling the Prophet’s, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, dream that they would perform ‘Umrah in Makkah while the Quraysh are still there, and the promise of those Beouins who did not witness the treaty of al-Hudaybiyah, along with the promise of their future victories against a people of great military force, and the promise that Islam will conquer the eastern and western horizons of the earth. All such prophecies came true.

Muhammad Wali Allaah An-Nadwi composed a book entitled Nuboo’aat ar-Rasūl, written for his master’s degree, and in which he mentioned 186 true prophecies, not including the six he conveyed with weak chains of narration. He said, “I only mentioned them because they came true.”

Regarding the Islamic conquests, Ibn Khaldoon said in his Taareekh (1/375):

Their capture of Persian and Roman lands, three or four years after the passing of the Prophet , sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, was one of his miracles […] and such miracles cannot be compared to normal occurrences.

Many scholars have written books entitled Dalaa’il an-Nubuwwah [Evidences of prophethood], the most famous and comprehensive of which was written by al-Bayhaqi in seven volumes. Sa‘eed Saalim Baashanfar compiled a book of the same title, in which he collected and mentioned the sources for 1,400 matters of the unseen.