Seerah and History

‘Āsim Al-Ahwal reported that ‘Abdullāh ibn Sarjis (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: I said to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him): "O Messenger of Allah, may Allah forgive you." He said: "And you." ‘Āsim added: "I asked him: 'Did the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) asked forgiveness for you?' He said: ‘Yes, and for you, and he recited this verse: {And ask forgiveness for your sin and for the believing men and believing women.} [Sūrat Muhammad: 19]"

As he visited ‘Ā’ishah (may Allah be pleased with her), Sa‘d ibn Hishām ibn ‘Āmir said: "O mother of the believers, tell me about the character of the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him)." She said: "Do you not recite the Qur’an?" He said: 'Yes.' She said: "Indeed, the Prophet's character was the Qur’an."

Abu al-Fadl Al-‘Abbās ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: I witnessed the Day of Hunayn with the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him). Abu Sufyān ibn al-Hārith ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib and I stuck with the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) and we did not leave him. The Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) was riding on his white mule. When the Muslims met the disbelievers on the battlefield, the Muslims retreated, but the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) began to spur his mule on towards the disbelievers. I was holding onto the Messenger’s mule’s bridle (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) restraining it from going very fast. Abu Sufyān who was holding the Messenger’s mule’s stirrup (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) said: "O Al-‘Abbās, call out to the people of Samurah." Al-‘Abbās (who was a man with a loud voice) called out at the top of his voice: "Where are the people of Samurah?" Al-‘Abbās said: "And by Allah, when they heard my voice, they came back (to us) as cows come back to their calves, and they said: 'We are here, we are here!'" Al-‘Abbās said: “They began to fight the disbelievers. Then there was a call to the Ansār. Those (who called out to them) shouted: ‘O you people of the Ansār!' O people of the Ansār!‘ Banu al-Hārith ibn al-Khazraj were the last to be called. The Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) who was riding on his mule watched at their fight, stretched his neck forward, and said: ‘This is the time when the fight is raging hot.' Then the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) took (some) pebbles and threw them in the faces of the disbelievers and said: ‘By the Lord of Muhammad, they are defeated.'" Al-‘Abbās said: “I went round and saw that the battle was in the same condition that I had seen it. And, by Allah! It remained in that same condition until he threw the pebbles. I continued to watch until I saw that their force had faded and they began to retreat."

‘Abdullāh ibn Mas‘ūd (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that during the Prophet's lifetime, the moon split into two halves. The mountain covered one half, and the other half was above the mountain. The Messenger of Allah (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) said: "O Allah, bear witness to this!"

Anas ibn Mālik (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: Zayd ibn Hārithah came to the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) complaining (about his wife). The Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) kept on saying to him: "Fear Allah and keep your wife." Anas said: "If the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) were to conceal anything (of the Qur'an), he would have concealed this (verse)." Then Anas said: "Zaynab used to boast before the Prophet's wives and say: 'You were given in marriage by your families, while I was given in marriage by Allah, the Almighty, from above seven Heavens.'" Thābit narrated that the Qur'anic verse: {while you concealed within yourself that which Allah is to disclose, and you feared the people} [Sūrat al-Ahzāb: 37] was revealed in connection to the story of Zaynab bint Jahsh and Zayd ibn Hārithah (may Allah be pleased with both of them).

‘Imrān ibn Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: Once we traveled with the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him). We set out traveling at night until the last part of it. Hence, we (stopped at a place) and slept (deeply). There is nothing sweeter than sleep for a traveler in the last part of the night. It was only the heat of the sun that woke us up. The first to wake up was so and so, then so and so, then so and so, and then ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb. Whenever the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) wanted to sleep, nobody would wake him up until he himself wakes up, because we did not know what was happening to him in his sleep. So when ‘Umar woke up and saw what happened to the people, and being a strict man, he said: "Allah Akbar" raising his voice with Takbīr. He kept on making Takbīr raising his voice with it until the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) woke up by his voice. When he got up, people complained to him about what had happened to them. He said: "There is no harm (or it does not matter). Depart!" So he departed. He walked not too long, and then dismounted and asked for water and made ablution. The call for the prayer was made, and he led people in prayer. After finishing the prayer, he saw a man in isolation. He did not pray with the people. So [the Prophet] asked, "O so and so! What prevented you from praying with the people?" He replied, "I have had a ritual impurity and there is no water." So he said: "Use earth; it is sufficient for you." Then the Prophet proceeded on and people complained to him of thirst. Thereupon, he dismounted and called a person and 'Ali. He said to them: “Go and find water.” So they departed and met a woman who was sitting on her camel between two bags of water. They asked: "Where is water?" She said: "I was at water this hour yesterday, and our men are absent." They said to her, “Then go.” She asked: "Where?" They said: "To the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him)." She said: "The one who is called Sābi' (apostate/who renounce his forefathers' religion)?" They said: "He is the one whom you mean. So come along." They brought her to the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) and told him the story. He said: "Help her to dismount her camel." The Prophet asked for a pot and poured in it water from the mouths of the two bags. Then he tied their mouths and released their bottoms. People were called upon to drink and water their animals. So whoever wanted to drink did so, and whoever wanted to water their animals did so. Last of all, the Prophet gave a pot of water to the person who had a ritual impurity and said: “Go and pour it on you.” The woman was there looking at what was being done with her water. By Allah, when it was done with [her bags], they looked to us as if they were fuller than it was when they started taking [water] from the bags. Then the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Collect something for her.” So they collected for her some ‘Ajwa (dates of Madīnah), flour and some dough, until some food was gathered for her, which they put in a piece of cloth. They helped her mount her camel and put that cloth in front of her. The Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) said to her: "You know, we have not taken any of your water; it was Allah who has given us water." She went to her people, when she was delayed from her people. So they said: "O so and so what has delayed you?" She said: "A strange thing! Two men met me and took me to the man who is called Sābi' who did such and such a thing. By Allah, he is either the greatest magician between this and this (gesturing with her index and middle fingers toward the sky and earth) or he is really the Messenger of Allah." Afterward, Muslims used to attack the pagans around her abode but never touched the area to which it belonged. One day she said to her people, "I do not think that these people leave you on purpose. So have you got any inclination to Islam?" They obeyed her and all of them embraced Islam.