Speech That Could Be Counted
ʿĀʾishah, comparing him to a man who spoke rapidly, said that the Prophet ﷺ “did not speak quickly the way you do; his speech was distinct, such that everyone who heard it understood it,” and that “if someone wished to count his words, he could have counted them.”1 Anas said that when he said something he would repeat it three times so it would be understood, and that when he came to a group and greeted them, he greeted them three times.2
He did not pour speech out. Ibn ʿAbbās described him as speaking in a measured way with pauses between his sentences, and the Companions found that they could memorise his words after hearing them once — which is part of why so much of what he said survives in his own phrasing rather than in paraphrase.3
What He Would Not Say
Anas, who served him a decade, reported flatly: “The Messenger of God ﷺ was not one to abuse others, nor to speak obscenely, nor to curse.” When he was displeased with someone, the most he would say was, “What is wrong with him — may his forehead be dusty!”4
ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr said, “He was neither obscene in speech nor did he speak obscenely deliberately,” and quoted him: “The best of you are the best of you in character.”5 He forbade a man to curse even the wind, and when someone cursed a camel, he told its owner to leave it behind: “Do not accompany us on a camel that has been cursed.”6
The Long Silence
The reports about his silence are as numerous as those about his speech. Al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, describing what he had learned about his grandfather from his father, said that “he was continuously silent, and would not speak without need,” and that his silence rested on four things: forbearance, caution, weighing matters, and reflection.7
He disliked idle talk and disliked speaking after the night prayer. He would sit with his companions and listen, and Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī said he was “more bashful than a virgin behind her veil,” so that when he disliked something the Companions could read it in his face without his having to say it.8
When he did speak of matters of religion he was careful to the point of scruple about the difference between what he had been given and what he had not. Asked about a question he had not been given an answer to, he waited. And the Companions learned to ask, when he gave an opinion, whether it was revelation or judgement — at Badr, when al-Ḥubāb ibn al-Mundhir asked exactly that about the choice of camp and was told it was judgement, he proposed a better position and the Prophet ﷺ moved the army.9