The Prophet ﷺ Chooses to Be a Messenger-Slave (Abdan-Rasula)

At an unspecified point in his life, the Prophet ﷺ was sitting with Jibril AS when an angel came down; Jibril told him Allah had permitted this angel to descend for the first time since the beginning of creation. The angel greeted the Prophet ﷺ and said Allah had sent him to ask a question: did he wish to be a malikan-rasula (a messenger-king) or an abdan-rasula (a messenger-slave)? Jibril AS motioned for him to humble himself, and the Prophet ﷺ chose to be a messenger-slave. The narrator of the hadith adds that after this, the Prophet ﷺ was never again seen eating while reclining against a wall, the simplest sign of a life of ease, because he had chosen servitude before Allah. A separate, more weakly-chained telling has the Prophet ﷺ recounting the same encounter directly to Aisha RA, describing the angel's belt as bigger than the Ka'bah itself and the choice as being between a nabiyan-malika (a king-prophet) and a nabiyan-abda (a slave-prophet).