خاتم النبي

خاتم النبي

A silver signet ring inscribed 'Muhammad, Messenger of God' in three lines — Muhammad a line, rasul a line, and Allah a line — adopted when the Prophet was told the foreign kings would not accept an unsealed letter ¹, its bezel of the same silver and turned toward the palm ². Ibn 'Umar reports a gold ring first, cast off when people copied it — 'I will never wear it' — then the silver one; Abu Bakr wore it after him, then 'Umar, then 'Uthman, from whose hand it fell into the well of Aris ³. Abu Bakr sealed with it the letter he sent to Bahrain on taking office ⁴.