Pause.
Get to know the Companions, the scholars, and the most exalted.
A serious challenge: who am I?
I am a Coptic Companion from Egypt.
I was a servant to al-'Abbas ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib, may Allah be pleased with him.
He gifted me to the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.
The Prophet freed me when I brought him the glad tidings of the conversion of al-'Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him.
Thus, I became a freedman of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him.
I embraced Islam before the Battle of Badr.
Islam had already entered our household.
Al-'Abbas embraced Islam, his wife Umm al-Fadl embraced Islam, and I embraced Islam.
Al-'Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him,
used to fear his people and disliked opposing them.
He kept his Islam hidden.
He possessed great wealth distributed among his people.
Abu Lahab, the enemy of Allah,
had stayed behind from the Battle of Badr.
When news arrived of the defeat of the Quraysh at Badr,
Allah humiliated and disgraced him.
I was working, carving arrow shafts in the chamber of Zamzam.
By Allah, I was sitting there carving my shafts,
with Umm al-Fadl sitting beside me,
and we were pleased with the news that had come.
Suddenly, Abu Lahab approached, dragging his feet in misery,
until he sat against the wall of the chamber.
His back was toward my back.
While he was sitting there,
Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith arrived.
Abu Lahab said,
"Come here," and he sat beside him.
He asked,
"O nephew, tell me, how did the people fare?"
He replied, "There is nothing to say.
By Allah, we simply encountered the people,
and we turned our backs to them; they killed us however they wished,
and they took us captive however they wished.
Yet, by Allah, I do not blame the people.
We encountered white men on piebald horses,
between the heaven and the earth.
By Allah, nothing could stand against them."
I lifted the curtain of the chamber with my hand,
and said, "By Allah, those were the angels."
Abu Lahab raised his hand,
and struck my face a severe blow.
I grappled with him,
and he picked me up and threw me to the ground.
Then he knelt upon me, beating me.
I was a weak man.
Umm al-Fadl stood up, took a tent pole from the chamber,
and struck him with it,
inflicting a terrible wound on his head.
She said, "You take advantage of him because his master is away?"
He stood up, turning away in humiliation.
By Allah, he only lived for seven nights,
until Allah afflicted him with the ulcer that killed him.
His sons left him for two or three days without burying him,
until he began to rot in his house.
The Quraysh feared the ulcer and its contagion,
just as people fear the plague.
Finally, a man from Quraysh said to them,
"Woe to you! Are you not ashamed?
Your father is rotting in his house, and you will not bury him?"
They said, "We fear this ulcer."
He said, "Come, I will help you."
They did not wash him, but rather threw water on him from a distance.
They would not touch him.
Then they carried him on his bed,
and buried him at the high part of Makkah against a wall.
They threw stones upon him until they covered him.
Then I migrated to Madinah,
and I witnessed the battles with the Prophet, peace be upon him.
I asked his permission to take from the charity (zakat).
He said, "The freedman of a people is one of them,
and charity is not permissible for us."
So, who am I?
We will confirm the correct answer in the comments
when the next episode is released,
if Allah wills.
The best of generations in stance and example,
following the Messenger whether he strove or spoke.
They were here, watering our lives like rain,
and their memory lives on within us, exalted.
They departed, leaving a question in the conscience:
Is there any star like them that has risen and shone?
They filled life with pride through their deeds,
and the world of the Ummah flourished because of them.