Abdullah ibn Ja'far

ProfileAbdullah ibn Ja'far

Abdullah ibn Ja'far (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of Ja'far ibn Abi Talib and Asma bint Umays. According to the early biographies, he was born in Abyssinia, where his parents had gone to escape the persecution in Makkah, and he had never seen Makkah. According to the early biographies, he crossed the sea as a child with his parents, and they reached the Prophet ﷺ in the year of Khaybar. According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ embraced Ja'far and said that he did not know which pleased him more, the coming of Ja'far or the conquest of Khaybar.

Abdullah ibn Ja'far told that when Allah's Messenger ﷺ came back from a journey, the children of his family used to welcome him. Once, he went to him first, and the Prophet ﷺ mounted him in front of him, and then one of the two sons of Fatimah came, and he mounted him behind him, and the three of them entered Madinah on one animal (Sahih Muslim).

According to the early biographies, his father was killed at Mu'tah in Jordan, and his arms were cut off in the fighting. Abdullah told that the Prophet ﷺ gave the family of Ja'far three days, and then came to them and told them not to weep for his brother after that day. He asked for the children of his brother, and they were brought to him, and he called a barber, and their heads were shaved (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih). Ash-Sha'bi told that whenever Ibn Umar greeted Ibn Ja'far, he would give him peace and call him the son of the one with two wings (Sahih al-Bukhari).

According to the early biographies, his mother then married Abu Bakr, and after Abu Bakr's death she married Ali, so that he grew up in the house of Ali, and was about ten years old when the Prophet ﷺ died. According to the early biographies, he later married Zaynab, the daughter of Ali and Fatimah and the sister of Hasan and Husayn, and after her death he married her sister Umm Kulthum. According to the early biographies, two of his sons by Zaynab, Awn and Muhammad, were killed at Karbala with Husayn, and Zaynab was taken captive.

According to the early biographies, he died in the year 80 AH, the year of the flood that swept away pilgrims at Makkah, and some say he was among those lost in it. The sources differ on the year and the place.

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