English Translation

He said, Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi told us: Abdullah ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Ta'ifi told us, from Uthman ibn Abdullah ibn Aws al-Thaqafi, from his grandfather Aws ibn Hudhayfa, who said: I was among the delegation who came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, having embraced Islam, from Thaqif, from Banu Malik. He lodged us in a tent of his, and he used to go back and forth between his houses and the mosque. When he prayed the last night prayer, he would come to us, and we would not leave until he had spoken to us, complaining of Quraysh and complaining of the people of Mecca, then he would say, 'It is not the same — we were in Mecca, humiliated and oppressed.' Then, when we went out to Medina, the fortunes of war were sometimes for us and sometimes against us. One night he stayed away from us and did not come, until it grew late after the night prayer. We said, 'What kept you from us, O Messenger of Allah?' He said, 'A portion of the Qur'an came to me unexpectedly, and I wanted not to leave until I had finished it.' He said: So we asked the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, when we woke up in the morning. We said, 'How do you divide the Qur'an into portions?' They said, 'We divide it into three surahs, five surahs, seven surahs, nine surahs, eleven surahs, thirteen surahs, and the portion of the detailed surahs from Qaf until the end.'