The Quraysh said to the Jews, "Give us something we can question this man about."They replied, "Ask him about the spirit."So they asked him about the spirit, and Allah revealed, "They ask you about the spirit. Say, the spirit is from the command of my Lord, and you have been given only a little knowledge" [Isra 17:85].They said, "But we have been given abundant knowledge, the Torah, and whoever is given the Torah has been given much good."Then this was revealed, "Say, if the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would run dry before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even if We brought the like of it as a further supply" [Surah Kahf 18:109].
قالت قريش ليهود: اعطونا شيئا نسأل عنه هذا الرجل، فقال: سلوه عن الروح. قال: فسألوه عن الروح، فأنزل الله {ويسألونك عن الروح قل الروح من أمر ربي وما أوتيتم من العلم إلا قليلا} قالوا: أوتينا علما كثيرا: التوراة، ومن أوتى التوراة فقد أوتي خيرا كثيرا، فأنزلت: {قل لو كان البحر مدادا لكلمت ربي لنفد البحر قبل أن تنفد كلمت ربي ولو جئنا بمثله مددا} [سورة الكهف: ١٠٩].
Tirmidhi (3140), Nasai in Kubra (11252), Ibn Hibban (99), and Hakim (2/531) all narrated it through Yahya bin Zakariya bin Abu Zaida, from Dawud bin Abu Hind, from Ikrima, from Abdullah bin Abbas, who said, then he mentioned it.Its isnad is sahih. Tirmidhi said, "This is a hasan sahih gharib hadith from this route." Hakim said, "This is a hadith with a sahih isnad."