Abu Dujanah

ProfileAbu Dujanah

Abu Dujanah (may Allah be pleased with him), whose name was Simak ibn Kharashah (Sahih Muslim), was of the Banu Sa'idah, a branch of the Khazraj in Madinah, the same clan as Sa'd ibn Ubadah. According to the early biographies, he was a young man brought up for tribal fighting, who practised with the spear, the sword and the horse. When Islam came, he became a Muslim, and was one of three young Ansar who went round Madinah breaking the idols. According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ paired him as a brother with Utbah ibn Ghazwan, who later conquered Basra. He was one of those who had been drinking wine when its prohibition came, and who poured it away (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, he fought at Badr and killed two of the leaders of Makkah.

His day was Uhud. The Prophet ﷺ took a sword and asked who would take it from him. All stretched out their hands. He asked who would take it with its right, and they drew back. Abu Dujanah said that he would take it with its right, and he took it, and struck the heads of the polytheists with it (Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, the Prophet's ﷺ right for the sword was that it should not be used on a believer, or turned away from an enemy in flight. Az-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, who had held out his hand, felt hurt, and said that he was the son of Safiyyah, the Prophet's ﷺ aunt, and of Quraysh, and that he would watch what the man did. According to the early biographies, Abu Dujanah put on a red headband that the Ansar knew as the band of death, and strutted before the enemy lines, swinging the sword. According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ said of this that it is a way of walking that Allah dislikes, except in such a place. A hadith says that there is a pride that Allah loves, which is the pride of a man when he fights and when he gives sadaqah, and a pride that He hates, which is pride in oppression (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded hasan). According to the early biographies, he sang as he went forward that his friend had taken a pledge from him that he would not stay at the back of the army and would fight with the sword of Allah and His Messenger.

According to the early biographies, az-Zubayr watched Abu Dujanah cut his way through, and saw him strike down in one blow a man who had been cutting through the Muslims. He reached the back of the Quraysh army, where women were singing to rouse the men, and raised his sword over one of them, who cried out, and it was Hind, the wife of Abu Sufyan. He held back, because the sword of the Prophet ﷺ was too noble to strike a woman. According to the early biographies, when the Muslims were attacked from behind, Abu Dujanah stood over the Prophet ﷺ and bent his back over him, and the enemy's arrows struck his back until it was like a hedgehog's, and he did not move. The Prophet ﷺ prayed that Allah be pleased with him. According to the early biographies, he fought in the other battles, and at Hunayn he killed the standard-bearer of the enemy, and the Prophet ﷺ left him in charge of Madinah when he was away.

According to the early biographies, he was at Yamamah, in the war against Musaylimah, and when the enemy held the walled garden called the Garden of Death, he asked to be thrown over the wall, and broke his leg in the fall. Wahshi and an Ansari man killed Musaylimah (Sahih al-Bukhari), and the Ansari is often said to have been Abu Dujanah. An arrow struck him, and he died. According to the early biographies, when he was ill and his face was shining, people asked him why, and he said that there were two deeds he trusted: that he never spoke about what did not concern him, and that his heart was sound towards the Muslims.

WatchA lecture about Abu Dujanah

Meet them inWhere they appear in the seerah

SourcesSources for this profile