The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was endowed with broad knowledge and deep understanding; Allah showered him with an abundance of beneficial knowledge and profound wisdom. Allah acknowledged the breadth of his s knowledge and announced the magnitude of his virtue by saying: [Allah has revealed unto you scripture and wisdom, and taught you what you knew not. The grace of Allah upon you has been great] [4:113].
He ﷺ is the most knowledgeable of Allah’s creation, and the most well-acquainted of them with Allah; al-Bukhārī and Muslim narrate that he s said: ‘The most god-fearing (atqā) of you, and the most knowledgeable (aʿlam) of you concerning Allah, is I.’ The narration of Aṣīlī has it: ‘I am the most well-acquainted (aʿraf ) of you with Allah.’
Whoever ponders Allah’s instruction of His messengers and prophets (may Allah bless them and give them peace), as mentioned in the Holy Qurʾān, will plainly deduce that our master Muḥammad ﷺ was given by Allah knowledge of the greatest, amplest, broadest, and most extensive degree. This is because Allah u said: [And [He] taught you what you knew not], using the term [what], which implies comprehensiveness and encompassment, thus including all the knowledge that Allah most High conveyed unto His messengers and prophets, as well as all the other things that Allah ta’ala conveyed unto him s alone.
Al-Bukhārī and Muslim narrate that Anas may be well pleased with him said: ‘The people would continuously put questions to the Prophet of Allah ﷺ, until they had asked him a copious amount of questions. One day, he ﷺ came out and climbed the pulpit and said: “Ask me: you will not ask anything except that I will answer it for you … Never have I seen good and evil such as I have seen this day: Paradise and Hell were shown to me, and I saw them right in front of this wall.”’
One aspect of the breadth of his ﷺ knowledge is that Allah gave him the Qurʾān, with all the teachings and truths that are gathered therein. The Qurʾān is an ocean of knowledge and wisdom; and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib may Allah ennoble his countenance said: ‘If I spoke to you about surat al-Fātiḥa, it would over-burden seventy camels.’ What, then, of the knowledge of our master Muḥammad ﷺ, and the understanding that the Qurʾān imparted unto him?
Another aspect of the breadth of his ﷺ knowledge is the many aspects of the unseen (al-ghayb) that Allah imparted unto him. Allah says: [[He is] the Knower of the unseen, and He discloses His secret to none / save those Messengers whom He has chosen…) [72:26]. Allah divulged many aspects of the unseen to him ﷺ, including his ﷺ knowledge of everything from the beginning of creation until the people of Paradise enter Paradise and the people of Hell enter Hell. This is affirmed by the ḥadīth narrated by al-Bukhārī on the authority of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb may Allah be well pleased with him, in which he said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood before us and informed us of everything from the beginning of creation until the people of Paradise enter Paradise, and the people of Hell enter Hell. Some of us remembered it, and some of us forgot it.’
Al-Bukhārī and Muslim also narrate that al-Ḥudhayfa may Allah be well pleased with him said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood before us and spoke, and did not leave anything [of all that will occur] until the Hour without making mention of it; some of us retained knowledge of it, and some of us did not. Thereafter I would see things I had forgotten and recognise them, just as one recognises a man one used to know when seeing him after a long absence.’
The Prophet ﷺ also gave information about that which would come to pass after him until the Day of Resurrection. Muslim narrates that ʿAmr ibn Akhṭab al-Anṣārī may Allah be well pleased with him said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ led us in the dawn prayer one day, and then ascended the pulpit, and spoke to us until the midday prayer arrived. He came down, prayed, and then climbed the pulpit again, and spoke to us until the afternoon prayer. He came down, prayed, and then climbed the pulpit again, and spoke to us until sunset. He informed us of everything that would come to pass until the Day of Resurrection; the best informed of us are those who remember best.’
So he ﷺ did not leave a single matter that would come to pass until the Day of Resurrection without informing them of it.
Abū Dāwūd narrated that Ḥudhayfa may Allah be well pleased with him said: ‘By Allah, I do not know if my companions were made to forget, or if they simply forgot. By Allah, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did not neglect to mention a single mischief-monger until the end of the world whose supporters numbered three hundred or more; he identified each one by his name, his father’s name, and the name of his tribe.’
It is also reported that he ﷺ informed us about all the various tidings of the Hour, minor, medial and major; and the conditions of the Hereafter and its partitions; and the condition of the people of Paradise and the people of Hell, and details of all that is concerned with them. All of this is clearly shown in the books of the Sunnah. This is evidence of the breadth of the knowledge that Allah bestowed upon him ﷺ.