Abdullah ibn Amr

ProfileAbdullah ibn Amr

Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of Amr ibn al-As and of Rayta bint Munabbih. According to the early biographies, his birth name was al-As, after his grandfather, the bitter enemy of the Prophet ﷺ, and the Prophet ﷺ changed it to Abdullah. According to the early biographies, he accepted Islam about a year before his father, perhaps because of the influence of his uncle Hisham, and grew up in wealth and in the pride of a great tribe. The Prophet ﷺ saw him wearing two garments dyed with saffron, and told him that they were the clothes of unbelievers, and not to wear them (Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, he said that he had had to unlearn much of his upbringing.

He threw himself into the religion. According to the early biographies, he memorised the Quran in his first year as a Muslim, and went to the Companions who knew the most to learn from them. When Abdullah ibn Mas'ud was mentioned in front of him, he said that he would always love him, since he had heard the Prophet ﷺ say to take the recitation of the Quran from four men, and named him first (Sahih al-Bukhari). He wrote down what he heard from the Prophet ﷺ. Abu Hurayrah said that no Companion had narrated more than he had except Abdullah ibn Amr, who used to write, and he did not (Sahih al-Bukhari). Abdullah told how, when he wrote everything that he heard, some men of Quraysh told him not to, for the Prophet ﷺ was a human being who spoke in anger and in pleasure. He stopped, and told the Prophet ﷺ, who pointed to his mouth and said to write, for only truth came out of it (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih). According to the early biographies, his book was called as-Sadiqah, the truthful sheet, and he held it dearer than almost anything he owned. Ata ibn Yasar met him and asked about the description of the Prophet ﷺ in the Torah, and he told it (Sahih al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ told them to convey from him even one sentence, and to tell the stories of Bani Isra'il, for there is no harm in it, and warned that whoever lies about him deliberately will take his seat in the Fire (Sahih al-Bukhari).

His zeal for worship was famous. The Prophet ﷺ heard that he fasted all day and prayed all night, and told him that his body had a right over him, and his wife had a right over him, and his guest had a right over him, so he should fast some days and not others, pray and also sleep. He told him that three days a month are enough, because a good deed is rewarded ten times, so it is like fasting the whole year. Abdullah insisted that he had more strength, and was told to fast as David did, one day and not the next, and no more. When he grew old, he used to say that it would have been better for him to take the Prophet's ﷺ concession (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). Abdullah told that his father married him to a woman of a noble family and often asked her how he was, and she said that he was a fine man who had never come to her bed since they married. When his father told the Prophet ﷺ, he met Abdullah, and told him to fast three days of each month, and to finish the Quran in a month, and when he said that he could do more, in seven days (Sahih al-Bukhari). He told how the Prophet ﷺ taught that there are two habits that a Muslim keeps and goes to Paradise, easy but kept by few: saying subhan Allah, alhamdulillah and Allahu akbar ten times each after every prayer, and thirty-four, thirty-three and thirty-three on going to bed, a hundred and fifty on the tongue and a thousand and five hundred on the scale. Abdullah said that he saw the Prophet ﷺ counting it on his hand (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih, and Sunan at-Tirmidhi, graded hasan). He told how on the Farewell Hajj the Prophet ﷺ stopped at Mina and people came with questions about the order of the rites, and to each he said that there was no harm (Sahih al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ taught that a Muslim is one from whose tongue and hand other Muslims are safe, and a muhajir is one who gives up what Allah has forbidden (Sahih al-Bukhari). He told the Prophet's ﷺ saying that Allah does not take away knowledge by snatching it from people, but by taking the scholars, so that people take ignorant men as leaders, who give rulings without knowledge and lead others astray (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, Aishah heard that he was telling this, and sent her nephew Urwa to ask him whether he had heard it from the Prophet ﷺ himself, and Abdullah said that he had.

He was brave as well as learned, and fought beside his father in the conquests of Syria, including Yarmuk, and in Egypt. According to the early biographies, he settled in Egypt for a time, and it is said that this is why much of his hadith was not gathered in Madinah, though it came into the Musnad of Ahmad and the six books. According to the early biographies, he was a quiet man who gave much away and wept in his prayer, and he used to say that the good deeds he could do after the Prophet ﷺ died were dearer to him than those they had done in his lifetime, because the world had come upon them. According to the early biographies, he took no active part in the fighting among the Muslims. He was with his father when he fought on the side of Mu'awiyah, and he said that he had been told by the Prophet ﷺ to obey his father, and so went out, but that he did not throw an arrow or draw a sword. According to the early biographies, he wept for it, and said that he wished he had died twenty years before. One of Ali's sons, whom he loved, would not speak to him for years because of it. He asked for his forgiveness, and in the end, when he explained that he had not fought, they were reconciled. When his father died, he was with him (Sahih Muslim). The reports differ on where and when he died: in Madinah, in Egypt or in Palestine, about 65 AH.

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