What lessons and insights can be drawn from the journey of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to Sham and his meeting with the monk Bahira?

Narrated by Al-Tirmidhi, who said it is a hasan gharib (good and strange) hadith; "We do not know it except from this narration." Al-Hakim said, "It is authentic according to the conditions of the Two Shaykhs [Bukhari and Muslim], though they did not narrate it." Al-Dhahabi deemed it weak due to the phrase at its end: "And Abu Bakr sent Bilal with him," for the correct view is that Abu Bakr had not yet purchased Bilal at that time.

Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar said: "Its narrators are trustworthy, and there is nothing objectionable in it except this phrase. It should be understood as an interpolation, extracted from another hadith."

Among the benefits of this story are: the affirmation of the prophethood of our Prophet, may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him, through the evident signs of his prophethood; and the hatred of the Jews and their rejection of the truth after they had recognized it.