Khaled bin Sinan

Khaled bin Sinan al-'Absi (Arabic: خالد بن سنان العبسي) was a semi-legendary historical figure from the Banu Abs tribe and a Prophet claimant living on the Arabian Peninsula, a generation before Muhammad. He is the earliest known historical Prophet claimant from pre-Islamic Arabia who, like Muhammad, fought paganism and preached monotheism to his people in the Hejaz. Many details about the life of Khaled are disputed in Islamic sources, such as the location of his tomb or whether he was a true or false Prophet. In Islamic tradition, the legacy of Khaled is defined by three legendary miracles. The most famous was his extinguishing the Nar al-Harratayn, a catastrophic volcanic fire or inferno that rose from a cave to threaten his region. He was also credited for saving his people from a monstrous and mythical bird of prey that snatched up livestock and children, by praying to God to strike down the species down into extinction. His final famous feat was his deathbed prophecy, where he instructed his sons to exhume his corpse three days after his burial once they spotted a specific animal herding sheep around his grave, promising that he would temporarily resurrect to reveal the secrets of the past and the future. While the animal appeared, as he predicted, his sons aborted Khaled's commands out of fear for the tribal mockery that would result from them exhuming his corpse. Khaled continues to be revered in the present day by some Muslim populations, especially in North Africa. There are at least five locations across the Muslim world that are believed to have his grave: Gorgan in Iran, Manbij in Syria, Biskra in Algeria, Tebessa in Algeria, and a site near Kairouan in Tunisia. In Algeria, one town, Sidi Khaled, is named after Khalid, and the community at this...