The chapter
After the Farewell Hajj, the signals multiplied, and he ﷺ read them aloud. Surah an-Nasr had come; he told his daughter privately that Jibril reviewed the Qur'an with him twice that Ramadan instead of once, "and I do not think but that my term has drawn near." At Uhud's graves he prayed over the martyrs like one bidding farewell, and said: "I do not fear that you will commit shirk after me, but I fear that you will compete over the world."
The illness began in the last days of Safar, a fever so strong that two men's heat, Abu Sa'id said, was in his one body, for his reward was doubled with his trial. He continued leading the prayer until strength failed, then issued the command that the community would later read as the quiet designation of the first successor: "Order Abu Bakr to lead the people in prayer." Aisha pleaded, her father was too soft-hearted, he would weep and not be heard, and was overruled three times.
In his final days he ﷺ gave the warnings that fence the religion: "May Allah curse the Jews and Christians, they took the graves of their prophets as places of worship." And the last worldly concern on his tongue was vertical and horizontal at once: "The prayer, the prayer, and those your right hands possess."
On the last morning, Monday, the community was at Fajr behind Abu Bakr when the curtain of Aisha's room lifted. He ﷺ stood watching them pray, and smiled, Anas said his face was a page of the mushaf, and the ranks nearly broke for joy; he gestured: complete your prayer. The curtain fell. He died before midday.
He died with his head against Aisha's chest, in her turn, in her room. Her brother entered with a fresh siwak; she saw the Prophet's eyes follow it, softened it with her own mouth, and he cleaned his teeth with it, she treasured all her life that her saliva and his were joined in his final hour. She heard him murmur the choice being offered: "With those You have favored, the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, the righteous… Rather, the Highest Companion, ar-Rafiq al-A'la." Three times, and he was gone. He was sixty-three.
Madinah broke. Umar stood with his sword drawn, insisting it could not be, until Abu Bakr kissed the Prophet's forehead: "sweet in life and sweet in death", went out, silenced the mosque, and delivered the two sentences on which the community's sanity was rebuilt: "Whoever worshipped Muhammad, Muhammad has died. And whoever worships Allah, Allah is Living and does not die." Then he recited: "Muhammad is only a messenger; messengers have passed away before him. If he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels?" Umar said: my legs could not carry me, I knew it was true.
He ﷺ was buried where he died, in Aisha's room, for Abu Bakr recalled his word: no prophet is buried except where he passed. Fatimah said to those returning from the burial: "How could your souls consent to pour the earth over the Messenger of Allah?", and to Anas she said the line the Codex closes the Seerah with: "O father, who answered his Lord when He called; O father, whose abode is the Garden of Firdaws."
The Seerah ends; the message does not. The next node opens the record of the Signs, the first of which, he ﷺ said, was his own passing: "Count six things before the Hour, the first: my death."