Abdullah ibn Salam

ProfileAbdullah ibn Salam

Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with him) was the most learned man among the Jews of Madinah, from the Banu Qaynuqa, and according to the early biographies he traced his line to the Prophet Yusuf. According to the early biographies, he was known as al-Husayn ibn Salam until the Prophet ﷺ named him Abdullah. His own people called him their chief and the son of their chief, and the most learned among them and the son of the most learned (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, he was honest and gentle, and worked in his own date garden instead of living off his position. According to the early biographies, he studied what the Torah said about a coming prophet and prayed that he would live to see him.

According to the early biographies, when he heard that a man in Makkah claimed to be a prophet, he asked travellers about his name, his qualities and his teaching, and what he heard matched what he had read. He was at the top of a palm tree, working, when the news came that the Prophet ﷺ had arrived in Madinah (Sahih al-Bukhari says he was picking dates in his garden), and according to the early biographies he cried "Allahu Akbar" from the top of it. His aunt Khalidah asked what was wrong with him, and said that he would not be this excited if he had heard that Musa had come. He told her that this was the brother of Musa, upon his religion, and that he had been sent with what Musa was sent with. She asked whether this was the prophet they had been told would come near the Hour, and he said that he was.

He went into the crowd, and he said that when he looked at the face of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ he knew that it was not the face of a liar. The first words he heard the Prophet ﷺ say in Madinah were to spread the greeting of peace, feed others, and pray at night while people sleep, and that those who did would enter Paradise in peace (Jami at-Tirmidhi, graded sahih). He then came to the Prophet ﷺ at the house of Abu Ayyub and asked three questions that only a prophet could answer: the first sign of the Hour, the first food of the people of Paradise, and why a child resembles its father or its mother. The Prophet ﷺ answered all three, and Abdullah declared that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is His Messenger (Sahih al-Bukhari). He said that the Jews were a people who told lies, and asked the Prophet ﷺ to question them about him before they knew he had accepted Islam. The Prophet ﷺ asked them what kind of man he was among them, and they called him the best of them and the son of the best. When the Prophet ﷺ asked what they would say if he became a Muslim, they said that Allah forbid it, and they said it twice. Abdullah came out and declared his Islam, and they called him the worst of them and the son of the worst. He said that this was what he had feared (Sahih al-Bukhari).

The Prophet ﷺ gave him glad tidings of Paradise during his life. Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas said that he never heard the Prophet ﷺ say of anyone walking on the earth that he was of the people of Paradise except Abdullah ibn Salam, and that the verse about a witness from the Children of Israel was revealed about him (Sahih al-Bukhari). He told how people said of him in the mosque of Madinah that he was one of the people of Paradise, and when Qays ibn Ubad followed him and asked, he said that no one should say what they do not know. He told Qays of a dream he had in the time of the Prophet ﷺ, of a garden with an iron pillar in its middle reaching up to the sky, and a handhold at the top of it. He was told to climb it, said that he could not, and a helper lifted him, and he took hold of the handhold and woke up with it in his hand. The Prophet ﷺ told him that the garden was Islam and the handhold was the firmest handhold, and that he would hold to Islam until he died (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sahih Muslim). He also said that a group of Companions were sitting together and said that if they knew which deed Allah loved most they would do it, and Allah revealed the opening of Surat as-Saff (Jami at-Tirmidhi, graded sahih). He used his learning to advise others. When Abu Burdah came to Madinah, Abdullah invited him to his house for barley flour and dates, in a house that the Prophet ﷺ had entered, and warned him that he was now in a land where interest was common, so that if someone who owed him sent him a load of straw or barley, he should not accept it (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ named his son Yusuf, sat him on his lap and wiped his head, and both Yusuf and Muhammad grew up to be scholars.

According to the early biographies, he was present at the conquest of Jerusalem, and it was said that a scholar of the Torah and the Quran witnessed the opening of the Holy City. According to the early biographies, when Uthman was besieged he went to speak to the besiegers and warned them against killing him, and when Ali was leaving Madinah for Iraq he asked him not to leave the city of the Prophet ﷺ. During the troubles he stayed in his house and taught. According to the early biographies, he died in Madinah at an old age and was buried in al-Baqi'.

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