In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Mawaddah Association is pleased
to present to you snapshots from the lives of the Companions,
by Dr. Abd al-Rahman Ra'fat al-Basha,
may Allah have mercy on him.
Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, may Allah be pleased with him.
"If you wish, you may be among the Emigrants (Muhajirun),
and if you wish, you may be among the Ansar.
So choose whichever of the two is dearer to your heart."
With these words, the Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, addressed him
when he first met him in Mecca.
And behind offering Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman the choice
to belong to either of these two noblest groups,
which are the dearest to the Muslims, lies a story.
Al-Yaman, Hudhayfah's father, was a Meccan from the Banu 'Abs tribe.
However, he had shed blood among his people,
which forced him to emigrate from Mecca to Yathrib.
There, he allied with the Banu 'Abd al-Ashhal and married among them,
and his son Hudhayfah was born to him.
Later, the obstacles preventing al-Yaman from entering Mecca ceased to exist,
so he began traveling back and forth between it and Yathrib,
though his residence in Medina remained more frequent and permanent.
When Islam shone its radiant light upon the Arabian Peninsula,
al-Yaman, Hudhayfah's father, was one of ten men from Banu 'Abs
who came as a delegation to the Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
and declared their Islam before him,
and that was before he emigrated to Medina.
Hence, Hudhayfah was Meccan by origin, yet Medinan by upbringing.
Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman was raised in a Muslim home,
brought up under the care of two parents who were among the foremost to enter the religion of Allah,
so he accepted Islam before his eyes ever beheld the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.
Hudhayfah's longing to meet the Messenger filled his entire being;
ever since he embraced Islam, he eagerly sought news of him and persistently inquired about his descriptions,
which only increased his deep devotion to him and yearning for him.
So he traveled to Mecca to meet him, and as soon as he saw the Prophet, he asked him:
"Am I an Emigrant or an Ansari, O Messenger of Allah?"
He, peace and blessings be upon him, replied, "If you wish, you may be among the Emigrants,
and if you wish, you may be among the Ansar; so choose for yourself whichever you prefer."
He replied, "Rather, I am an Ansari, O Messenger of Allah."
When the Messenger, peace be upon him, emigrated to Medina,
Hudhayfah adhered to him as closely as one eye to the other,
and he took part with him in all the battles except Badr.
Concerning Hudhayfah's absence from Badr, there is a story he recounted himself, saying:
"Nothing prevented me from participating in Badr except that my father and I were outside Medina,
and the disbelievers of Quraysh captured us and said, 'Where are you heading?'
We said, 'To Medina.' They said, 'You only intend to join Muhammad.'
We replied, 'We intend nothing but Medina.'
They refused to let us go until they took a covenant from us
that we would not support Muhammad against them nor fight alongside him.
Then they released us.
When we came to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
we informed him of the pledge we had made to Quraysh
and asked him what we should do.
He, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
'We shall fulfill their covenant and seek the help of Allah against them.'"
When the Battle of Uhud took place,
Hudhayfah fought in it alongside his father, al-Yaman.
As for Hudhayfah,
he fought with the utmost valor and noble distinction,
emerging from it unharmed.
As for his father, he was martyred in it,
but his martyrdom was by the swords of the Muslims,
not by the swords of the polytheists.
There is a story behind this that we recount as follows:
On the day of Uhud,
the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, placed al-Yaman
and Thabit ibn Waqsh
in the fortresses along with the women and children,
because they were two elderly men advanced in age.
When the heat of the battle intensified,
al-Yaman said to his companion:
"Confound you! What are we waiting for?
By Allah, neither of us has any life left to live
except as little as the time it takes a donkey to get thirsty!
We are but dead men of today or tomorrow!
Shall we not take our swords
and join the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him,
so that Allah might grant us martyrdom alongside His Prophet?"
Then they took their swords, entered among the ranks,
and plunged into the battle.
As for Thabit ibn Waqsh,
Allah honored him with martyrdom at the hands of the polytheists.
But as for al-Yaman, Hudhayfah's father,
the swords of the Muslims struck him repeatedly while they did not recognize him.
Hudhayfah began shouting:
"My father! My father!"
Yet no one could hear him.
The elderly man fell slain by the swords of his companions,
and Hudhayfah said no more to them than:
"May Allah forgive you,
and He is the Most Merciful of the merciful."
Later, the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, intended
to pay the son the blood money for his father,
but Hudhayfah said:
"He was only seeking martyrdom, and he has attained it.
O Allah, bear witness that I have given his blood money as charity to the Muslims."
This only elevated his status further with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.
The Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, probed the depths of Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman's character
and recognized in him three distinctive traits:
an extraordinary intelligence
that aided him in resolving complex dilemmas,
a compliant, sharp wit
that responded whenever called upon,
and an ability to keep secrets
such that no one could penetrate his inner knowledge.
It was the policy of the Messenger, peace be upon him,
to discover the strengths of his Companions
and harness the latent potentials within them,
by placing the right man in the right position.
The greatest challenge facing the Muslims in Medina
was the presence of the hypocrites, the Jews, and their factions,
and the plots and conspiracies they were hatching against the Prophet, peace be upon him,
and his Companions.
So the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, disclosed
to Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman the names of the hypocrites—
a secret he revealed to none other of his Companions—
and entrusted him with monitoring their movements,
tracking their activities,
and warding off their danger from Islam and the Muslims.
From that day on,
Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman was called "the keeper of the secret of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him."
The Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, utilized
Hudhayfah's talents in one of the most perilous situations,
one that most urgently demanded extraordinary intelligence and quick wit.
That was at the peak of the Battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq),
when the enemy had surrounded the Muslims from above them and from below them,
the siege had grown prolonged,
the distress had intensified,
and exhaustion and hardship had reached their absolute limits,
to the point that eyes grew wild and hearts reached the throats,
and some Muslims began entertaining doubts about Allah.
Yet Quraysh and their polytheist allies in those decisive hours
were in no better condition than the Muslims;
for Allah, Glorified and Exalted be He, poured out upon them of His wrath
that which sapped their strength and shook their resolve.
He unleashed against them a howling, freezing wind
that overturned their tents, overturned their cooking pots,
extinguished their fires, hurled gravel in their faces,
and choked their eyes and nostrils with dust.
In such critical moments in the history of warfare,
the losing side is the one that groans first,
while the winning side
is the one that maintains its composure just a blink of an eye longer than its adversary.
In these moments when the fates of battles are decided,
military intelligence holds the paramount role
in assessing the situation and offering counsel.
Hence, the Messenger, peace be upon him, needed
the talents and expertise of Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman,
and resolved to dispatch him into the heart of the enemy's army under the cover of darkness
to bring him their news before deciding on a course of action.
Let us leave the floor to Hudhayfah to tell us about this journey of death.
Hudhayfah said: "On that night, we were sitting in ranks,
while Abu Sufyan and the Meccan polytheists with him were above us,
and the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayzah were below us,
and we feared for our women and children from them.
Never had a night passed over us darker or with stronger wind than that night;
the sounds of its wind were like thunderclaps,
and its intense darkness made it impossible for any of us to see his own finger.
The hypocrites began asking the Messenger, peace be upon him, for permission to leave,
saying, 'Our homes are exposed to the enemy,'
while they were not exposed.
Whenever anyone of them asked him for permission, he granted it to him,
and they kept slipping away until only about three hundred of us remained.
At that point, the Prophet, peace be upon him, stood up
and began passing by us one by one until he came to me.
I had nothing to protect me from the cold
except a small woolen wrap belonging to my wife that did not reach past my knees.
He approached me while I was crouching on the ground
and said, 'Who is this?'
I said, 'Hudhayfah.'
He said, 'Hudhayfah?'
So I shrank closer to the ground, reluctant to stand up due to severe hunger and cold,
and said, 'Yes, O Messenger of Allah.'
He said, 'Something is happening among the enemy,
so infiltrate their camp and bring me their news.'
I set out while being among the most terrified of people and the coldest.
Then the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
'O Allah, protect him from in front of him and from behind him,
from his right and from his left,
and from above him and from beneath him.'
By Allah, no sooner had the Prophet, peace be upon him, finished his supplication
than Allah stripped from my heart all the fear He had placed in it,
and removed from my body all the cold that had afflicted it.
When I turned to go,
he, peace and blessings be upon him, called out to me and said:
'O Hudhayfah, do not instigate anything among the people until you return to me.'
I said, 'Yes,' and proceeded to slip away under the cover of darkness
until I entered among the soldiers of the polytheists and became just like one of them.
It was not long
before Abu Sufyan stood up among them to deliver a speech and said:
'O people of Quraysh,
I am about to say something to you that I fear might reach Muhammad,
so let every man among you look at who is sitting beside him.'
Immediately, I grabbed the hand of the man next to me
and said, 'Who are you?'
He said, 'So-and-so, son of so-and-so.'
Thereupon, Abu Sufyan said:
'O people of Quraysh,
"By Allah, you are no longer in an enduring abode.
Our riding beasts have perished,
Banu Qurayzah have abandoned us,
and we have suffered from the severity of the wind as you can see,
so depart, for I am departing!"
Then he went to his camel, untied its hobble, and mounted it;
then he struck it, and it sprang to its feet.
And had it not been that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
commanded me not to initiate anything until I returned to him,
I would have killed him with an arrow.
Thereupon, I returned to the Prophet (peace be upon him)
and found him standing in prayer, wrapped in a woolen garment belonging to one of his wives.
When he saw me, he drew me close to his feet
and cast an edge of the garment over me.
I then conveyed the news to him,
and he rejoiced greatly over it,
praising and extolling Allah.
Hudhayfah Ibn al-Yaman remained the entrusted keeper of the secrets regarding the hypocrites
for as long as he lived,
and the Caliphs continually referred to him regarding their affairs.
Indeed, 'Umar Ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him),
whenever a Muslim passed away, would ask:
"Did Hudhayfah attend the funeral prayer for him?"
If they said yes, he would pray over him,
but if they said no, he would suspect him and withhold from praying over him.
'Umar once asked him,
"Is there among my governors any of the hypocrites?"
Hudhayfah replied, "One."
'Umar said, "Point him out to me."
He replied, "I will not."
Hudhayfah said,
"Yet it was not long before 'Umar dismissed him,
as if he had been guided right to him."
Perhaps few people know that Hudhayfah Ibn al-Yaman
conquered for the Muslims Nahavand,
Dinawar,
Hamadhan,
and Rayy,
and was the reason for uniting the Muslims upon a single Qur'anic codex (Mushaf)
after they were on the verge of dividing over the Book of Allah.
Yet despite all of that,
Hudhayfah Ibn al-Yaman harbored an intense fear of Allah for his own soul,
and a tremendous dread of His punishment.
When his terminal illness weighed heavily upon him,
some of the Companions came to visit him in the dead of night.
He asked, "What hour is this?"
They replied, "We are close to dawn."
He said, "I seek refuge with Allah from a morning that leads me to the Fire."
Then he asked, "Have you brought a burial shroud?"
They said, "Yes."
He said, "Do not be extravagant with shrouds,
for if there is good in store for me with Allah,
it will be replaced with something far better;
and if it is the other case, it will be stripped from me."
Then he began to say,
"O Allah, You know that I used to prefer poverty over wealth,
and humility over worldly honor,
and death over life."
Then, as his soul was departing, he said,
"A beloved has arrived upon longing;
may he who regrets never prosper!"
May Allah have mercy on Hudhayfah Ibn al-Yaman,
for he was truly a singular kind of man.
"Whatever Hudhayfah narrates to you, believe it;
and whichever way 'Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud recites to you, recite it."
"'Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud recites to you, recite it."
A noble hadith.