In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Treasures of the Prophetic Biography (Seerah).
The beginning of the call.
Revelation was granted to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him),
and he was given the glad tidings of prophethood.
Then the revelation ceased for a period,
after which it returned to him a second time following three years.
This phase is known as
the period of prophethood (Nubuwwah)
prior to the full apostolic mission (Risalah).
And the Prophet (peace be upon him) began
inviting those closest to him
to the religion of Allah, the Blessed and Exalted.
The very first
to embrace Islam with the Prophet (peace be upon him)
among women
was Khadijah;
among freed slaves,
Zayd Ibn Harithah;
among young boys,
'Ali Ibn Abi Talib;
among free men,
Abu Bakr al-Siddiq;
and among slaves,
Bilal Ibn Rabah.
On the authority of Hammam Ibn al-Harith,
from 'Ammar Ibn Yasir,
who said:
"I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him)
when there was no one with him except five slaves,
two women,
and Abu Bakr."
And there embraced Islam through Abu Bakr
al-Siddiq:
al-Zubayr Ibn al-'Awwam,
'Uthman Ibn 'Affan,
Sa'd Ibn Abi
Waqqas,
and 'Abd al-Rahman Ibn 'Awf,
may Allah be pleased with them.
And on the authority of 'Amr Ibn 'Abasah al-Sulami
(may Allah be pleased with him), who said:
"I came to the Messenger of Allah
(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
at the very beginning of his mission while he was in Mecca,
and he was at that time
in hiding. So I said:
'What are you?'
He replied: 'I am a prophet.'
I asked: 'And what is a prophet?'
He said:
'Allah has sent me.'
I asked: 'Ah,
Allah has sent you?'
He said: 'Yes.'
I asked: 'With what has He sent you?'
He replied: 'That you worship Allah
alone without any partner,
destroy the idols,
and uphold the ties of kinship.'
He said: I said:
'How excellent is that which He has sent you with!
And who has followed you in this?'
He replied:
'A free man and a slave.'"
He said:
"Later, 'Amr used to say:
'I certainly saw myself
when I was one-fourth of Islam.'"
He said: "So I embraced Islam,
and said: 'Shall I follow you,
O Messenger of Allah?'
He said: 'No,
rather return to your people,
and when you hear that I have
openly triumphed, then come to me.'"
And on the authority of Ibn Mas'ud
(may Allah be pleased with him), who said:
"I was a young lad,
tending the sheep of 'Uqbah
Ibn Abi Mu'ayt in Mecca,
when the Messenger of Allah
(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
and Abu Bakr came upon me,
having fled in secret from the polytheists.
He said: 'O young boy,
do you have any
milk to give us a drink?'
I said: 'I am entrusted with them,
so I cannot give you any drink.'
He said:
'Do you have a young ewe
that has not yet mated with a ram?'
I said: 'Yes.'
So I brought it to them both,
and Abu Bakr held it fast,
while the Messenger of Allah
(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
stroked the udder and supplicated.
The udder filled with milk,
and Abu Bakr brought him a hollowed-out
rock in which he milked it.
Then he drank,
he and Abu Bakr, and then I drank.
Then he said to the udder:
'Shrink,'
and it shrank back to how it was.
Sometime later,
I came to the Messenger of Allah
(peace be upon him) and said:
'Teach me some of this
speech!' So he said,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him:
'You are a boy destined to be taught.'
And I learned directly from his mouth
seventy surahs,
in which no one
can dispute with me."
Treasures of the Prophetic Biography (Seerah):
The conversion to Islam of Abu—
Abu Dharr al-Ghifari,
may Allah be pleased with him.
Among those who embraced Islam at the very
beginning was Abu Dharr al-Ghifari,
and his story is as
follows:
Abu Dharr said: "We departed
from our tribe, Ghifar,
who used to treat the sacred month as permissible.
I set out along with my brother
Unays and our mother,
and we stayed with a maternal uncle of ours.
Our uncle treated us honorably
and was good to us,
but his people envied us and said to him:
'Whenever you leave your family,
Unays goes in to them behind your back'—
implying that he
was betraying him with his family.
So our uncle came
and repeated to us what had been said to him,
meaning he disclosed and divulged what
was told to him.
So I said to him: 'As for your past
kindness, you have tarnished it,
and we shall never join together
with you after this.'
So we brought our small herd of camels close,
loaded our belongings onto them,
left our uncle,
and departed.
Our uncle covered his head with his garment
and began to weep.
We traveled until we reached
the vicinity of Mecca.
Then Unays competed in a poetic contest wagering our herd of camels
against an equal number.
They went to a soothsayer who judged in favor of Unays,
so Unays came back to us
with our herd and an equal number with it."
That is to say, Unays
was a poet
who arrived at a place near Mecca,
and rivaled people
in poetry with a wager of a she-camel
for a she-camel.
Then they sought judgment from the soothsayer,
who ruled that Unays
was the better poet, so he won both camels.
Abu Dharr said
to the narrator from him, 'Abdullah
Ibn al-Samit: "And I used to pray,
O nephew, before
I met the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him) by three years."
I asked—
'Abdullah Ibn al-Samit—:
"For whom?" He said: "For Allah."
I asked:
"And which direction did you face?"
He said: "I faced wherever
my Lord directed me.
I would pray in the evening
until, toward the end of the night,
I would collapse like a discarded garment
until the sun rose high over me."
Abu Dharr said:
"Then my brother Unays
said to us: 'I have some business
in Mecca, so look after matters for me
with my mother until I go
and return.'
So Unays set off until he reached Mecca,
but he was delayed in returning—
meaning he took a long time.
Then he returned, so I said: 'What did you do?'
He said:
'I met a man in Mecca who follows your religion,
"claiming that Allah
has sent him."
Abu Dharr said: "I asked,
'So what do the people say?'
He replied: 'They say
he is a poet, a soothsayer,
and a sorcerer.'
But I have heard the words of the soothsayers,
and his speech is nothing like theirs;
and I compared his words
to the meters of poetry,
and no one's tongue can rightly claim
that it is poetry.
By Allah, he is truly truthful,
and they are indeed liars!"
Abu Dharr said:
"I said to Unays,
'Look after my affairs here until I go
and see for myself.'
So I came to Mecca and approached a man who seemed vulnerable among them—
meaning, I went to a man
whom I deemed weak among them—
and I asked,
'Where is this man whom you call
the Sabian?'
He pointed at me and shouted,
'Here is the Sabian!'
Thereupon, the people of the valley fell upon me
with clods of earth and bones,
until I collapsed unconscious
from the severe beating.
When I finally stood up,
I was covered in blood, like a red sacrificial stone altar.
So I went to the Well of Zamzam,
washed the blood off myself,
and drank of its water.
I stayed there, O nephew, for thirty
days and nights.
I had no food
except Zamzam water,
yet I grew fat until the folds of my belly
creased,
and I never felt
any pangs of hunger in my stomach.
Then, one bright, moonlit night
while the people of Mecca were asleep,
deep slumber overcame them,
meaning their ears were sealed in sleep,
so no one was circumambulating the House
except two women supplicating
the idols Isaf and Na'ilah.
As they passed by me
during their circumambulation,
I said,
'Marry one to the other!'
But they did not desist
from their invocations.
He said: When they came by me again,
I said something explicitly vulgar about the idols,
comparing them to mere wood,
without using any euphemism.
So the two women hurried away wailing
and crying out,
'If only there were someone here
from our men!'
Then the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
and Abu Bakr met them as they were descending.
He asked: 'What is the matter with you two?'
They replied,
'The Sabian is between the Ka'bah
and its drapes!'
The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, asked,
'What did he say to you?'
They said,
'He spoke words that filled our mouths with shame!'
Then the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, approached
until he touched the Black Stone,
and circumambulated the House
along with his companion,
and then offered prayer.
When he finished his prayer,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
I was the very first person
to greet him with the greeting of Islam.
I said to him,
'Peace be upon you, O Messenger of Allah!'
He replied,
'And upon you, and the mercy of Allah.'
Then he asked,
'Who are you?'
I replied, 'From the tribe of Ghifar.'
He said: He lowered his hand
and placed his fingers upon his forehead.
I thought to myself,
'He disliked that I belong
to Ghifar.'
So I moved to take his hand from his forehead,
but his companion restrained me—
and he knew him better
than I did. Then the Prophet raised
his head and asked,
'How long have you been here?'
I replied, 'I have been here
for thirty
days and nights.'
He asked, 'And who has been feeding you?'
I said,
'I had no food
except Zamzam water,
yet I grew fat until the folds of my belly
creased, and I do not
feel any pangs of hunger in my stomach.'
Thereupon the Prophet,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said,
'Indeed, it is blessed;
it is truly a nourishing food.'
Then Abu Bakr said,
'O Messenger of Allah,
grant me permission to host him tonight.'
So the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
and Abu Bakr set off,
and I went along with them.
Abu Bakr unlocked a door
and began taking handfuls of raisins from
al-Ta'if for us,
and that was the very first food
I ate there.
Then I remained for as long as I remained,
after which I came to the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
and he said,
'I have been shown the land of palm trees to which I shall emigrate;
I see it
to be none other than Yathrib.
Will you convey the message
from me to your people?
Perhaps Allah will benefit them through you
and reward you for them.'
So I went back to Unays,
and he asked me, 'What have you done?'
I said, 'I have
embraced Islam and believed.'
He said,
'I have no aversion to your religion;
I too have embraced Islam and believed.'
Then we went to our mother,
and she said,
'I have no aversion to your religion;
I too have embraced Islam and believed.'
So we packed our belongings
and came to our people,
the tribe of Ghifar,
and half of them embraced Islam.
They were led in prayer by Imah ibn Rahadah
al-Ghifari,
who was their chieftain.
And the other half said,
'When the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, arrives in
Medina, we will embrace Islam.'
When the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, arrived in
Medina,
the remaining half
embraced Islam.
Then the tribe of Aslam came
and said, 'O Messenger of Allah,
our brethren have embraced Islam, so we embrace Islam
upon the same terms as they did.'
And so they embraced Islam.
Thereupon the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said,
'Ghifar—may Allah forgive
them;
and Aslam—may Allah grant them peace.'
Treasures of the Prophetic Biography (Seerah):
The conversion to Islam of al-Tufayl
ibn 'Amr al-Dawsi,
may Allah be pleased with him.
Al-Tufayl was
an obeyed chieftain and a nobleman
among the tribe of Daws, and Daws
was in Yemen. He had
arrived in Mecca, where the nobles of Quraysh
gathered around him
and warned him against the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.
They forbade him from meeting with him
or listening to his words.
Al-Tufayl ibn 'Amr said:
'By Allah, they continued pressing
me until I resolved
not to hear anything
from him nor speak to him,
to the point that when I went to the Sacred Mosque,
I stuffed my ears with cotton
out of fear.'
'So I went early in the morning to the Mosque,
"And there was the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
standing
praying near the Ka'bah.
So I stood close to him,
but Allah willed that He should cause me to hear
some of his words,
and I heard beautiful speech.
So I said to myself,
'May my mother be bereaved of me!
By Allah, I am a man
who is intelligent and a poet;
what is good is not hidden from me, nor what is bad.
So what prevents me
from listening to what this man says?
For if that
which he brings is good, I will accept it,
and if it is bad,
I will leave it.'
Then I waited until the Messenger of Allah,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, turned away
to his house,
and I entered upon him
and said, 'O Muhammad,
indeed your people told me such and such,
and such,
and by Allah, they kept making me fear
your affair until I stuffed
my ears with cotton so that I would not
hear your words.
Then Allah willed that He should cause me to hear
your words, and I heard beautiful
speech.' So he presented—
so the Messenger of Allah,
peace be upon him, presented
Islam to me
and recited the Qur'an to me.
And by Allah, I had never heard
speech better than it,
nor a matter more just than it.
So I embraced Islam and bore
the testimony of truth.
And I said, 'O Prophet of Allah,
indeed I am an obeyed man among my people,
and I am returning
to them to call them
to Islam,
so pray to Allah to make a sign for me
that will be a help to me against them
in that to which I call them.'
So he said,
'O Allah, grant him a sign.'
He said: 'So I went out
to my people until,
when I was at the mountain pass
that overlooks the settlement,
a light fell between my eyes
like a lamp.
So I said, "O Allah, place it somewhere other than
my face, for I fear
they might think it is a disfigurement."
So it moved and fell upon the tip of my whip,
and the people of the settlement began
looking at that light
from the tip of my whip
shining like a lantern
as I was descending upon them
from the mountain pass,
until I reached them and was among them in the morning.
So when I arrived,
my father came to me—
and he was an elderly man—
and I said, "Keep away from me,
my father,
for I am not of you, nor are you of me."
He said, "Why, my son?"
I said,
"I have embraced Islam and followed the religion of Muhammad,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him."
He said,
"O my son, your religion is my religion."
I said,
"Then go and wash, and purify
your clothes, then come to me
so that I may teach you of what I have been taught."
So he went,
washed, and purified his clothes,
then he came, and I presented
Islam to him, and he embraced Islam.
Then my wife came to me,
and I said, "Keep away from me,
for I am not of you, nor are you of me."
She said,
"Why, may my father and mother be sacrificed for you?"
I said,
"Islam has separated me and you,
and I have followed the religion of Muhammad,
peace be upon him."
She said,
"Then my religion is your religion."
So I said, "Then go
to the sanctuary of Dhu Ash-Shara and purify yourself
from it."
She said, "May my father and mother be sacrificed for you,
do you fear anything for the children from Dhu Ash-Shara—
any harm?"
I said, "No,
I guarantee that."
She said, "So she went and washed,
then she came,
and I presented Islam to her,
and she embraced Islam."
Then I called Daws to Islam,
but they were slow to respond to me.
Then I came to the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him,
in Mecca
and said, "O Messenger of Allah,
they were slow to respond to me,
so supplicate against them."
But the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said,
"O Allah,
guide Daws.
Return to your people, call them,
and be gentle with them."
He said: "So I continued in the land of Daws,
calling them to Islam,
until he migrated—
the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him—
to Medina,
and Badr, Uhud,
and Al-Khandaq passed.
Then I came to the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him,
with those who had embraced Islam with me
from my people,
while the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him,
was at Khaybar,
and he assigned us a share alongside the Muslims.
[Treasures of the Prophetic Biography]