Volume 6, Book 60, Number 347:
Narrated Abdullah:
It is a sign of having knowledge that, when you do not know something, you say: ‘Allah knows
better.’ Allah said to his Prophet:
Volume 6 – 1070 / 1700
SAHIH BUKHARI VOLUME 6 > BOOK 60: PROPHETIC COMMENTARY ON THE QUR’AN (TAFSEER OF THE PROPHET (PBUH))
‘Say: No wage do I ask of you for this (Qur’an), nor am I one of the pretenders (a person who pre –
tends things which do not exist)’ (38.86) When the Quraish troubled and stood against the Prophet
he said, “O Allah! Help me against them by afflicting them with seven years of famine like the seven
years of Joseph.” So they were stricken with a year of famine during which they ate bones and dead
animals because of too much suffering, and one of them would see something like smoke between
him and the sky because of hunger. Then they said: Our Lord! Remove the torment from us, really
we are believers. (44.12) And then it was said to the Prophet (by Allah), “If we remove it from them.
they will revert to their ways (of heathenism).” So the Prophet invoked his Lord, who removed the
punishment from them, but later they reverted (to heathenism), whereupon Allah punished them on
the day of the Battle of Badr, and that is what Allah’s Statement indicates:
‘Then watch for the day that the sky will bring forth a kind of smoke plainly visible…we will in –
deed (then) exact retribution.’ (44.10).