Abu Sa'id al-Khudri

ProfileAbu Sa'id al-Khudri

Abu Sa'id (may Allah be pleased with him), whose name was Sa'd ibn Malik ibn Sinan, was of the Banu Khudrah of the Khazraj, and was born and lived in Madinah. Both his parents became Muslims, and he was a boy when the Prophet ﷺ arrived. According to the early biographies, he lived in Madinah all his life, apart from short journeys, and was known there as its mufti, the one people asked for rulings. His older sister Fari'ah bint Malik asked the Prophet ﷺ whether she could go back to her family after her husband was killed on the road, and he first said yes, then called her back and told her to stay in her house until her waiting period was over, four months and ten days. She said that Uthman later asked her about it, and followed it in his judgments (Sunan at-Tirmidhi, graded sahih).

According to the early biographies, his parents took him to the Prophet ﷺ before Uhud, as a boy, hoping that he could fight, and the Prophet ﷺ looked him up and down and sent him back, as he did with other boys too young to fight. He waited with the other boys outside the battlefield for news. According to the early biographies, his father, Malik ibn Sinan, was among those who stayed by the Prophet ﷺ when he was wounded, and caught the blood from his face so that it would not fall to the ground, and was killed. The Prophet ﷺ then rode up to the boys, asked the boy's name, and told him that his father had been martyred and that Allah would make his reward great. Afterwards his family was poor. He told that some of the Ansar asked the Prophet ﷺ for help, and that he gave them until he had nothing left, and said that if he had any more he would not keep it from them. He said that whoever restrains himself from asking, Allah will make content, whoever tries to be self-sufficient, Allah will make self-sufficient, and whoever is patient, Allah will make patient, and that no one is given anything better and wider than patience (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, he took that to heart and asked no one, and Allah blessed his family, until his was among the richest households of the Ansar.

According to the early biographies, he fought in the battles after Uhud, and was one of those who took the pledge under the tree. He was close to the Prophet ﷺ, and much of what he told is about him. He said that the Prophet ﷺ was shyer than a veiled girl in her room (Sahih al-Bukhari). He told how, in the mosque on a rainy day, with a roof of palm branches, the Prophet ﷺ led them in prayer, and he saw the marks of mud on the Prophet's ﷺ forehead and nose (Sahih al-Bukhari). He told how the Prophet ﷺ said to him that whoever is pleased with Allah as Lord, Islam as religion and Muhammad as Prophet, Paradise is his. Abu Sa'id asked him to repeat it, and he did, and added that there is another act that raises a person a hundred degrees in Paradise, the distance between each being like the distance between the heavens and the earth, and that it is striving in the cause of Allah (Sahih Muslim). He narrated the ruqyah story from a journey. A party of Companions were refused hospitality by a tribe, whose chief was then bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion, and one of the Companions recited al-Fatihah over him, and he recovered. When they told the Prophet ﷺ that they had been given sheep, he smiled and asked how they knew that it was a ruqyah, and told them to take the sheep and give him a share (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim).

He is the narrator of the story of the man who killed ninety-nine people and then sought to repent (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). He told that whoever fasts a day for Allah's sake, Allah keeps his face from the Fire for a distance of seventy years (Sahih al-Bukhari). He narrated that a journey should not be undertaken for a mosque except to three (Sahih al-Bukhari), and how, when he asked the Prophet ﷺ which of two mosques was the one founded on piety, the Prophet ﷺ took a handful of pebbles, threw them on the ground, and said that it was his own mosque in Madinah (Sahih Muslim). He narrated that when a righteous person's body is lifted onto the shoulders, he says to carry him quickly, and that everything hears it except humankind (Sahih al-Bukhari). He told the Prophet's ﷺ teaching about the dying, to remind them of the words that there is no god but Allah (Sahih Muslim), and the question the Companions asked about how to send blessings on him (Sahih al-Bukhari). A report in Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah about welcoming students of knowledge is graded weak, and is left out.

According to the early biographies, he taught in the Prophet's ﷺ mosque after the Prophet ﷺ died. He taught the Quran a few verses at a time, with their meaning, and received the students who came from other lands, and when they visited his garden he would put on a shawl and tell them what he had heard from the Prophet ﷺ. A man told him how lucky he was to have seen the Prophet ﷺ, and he wept and said that the man did not know what they had done since. He told how the Prophet ﷺ taught that fear of people should not keep a man from speaking the truth when he knows it, and wept and said that they had seen things and kept quiet out of fear (Sunan Ibn Majah, graded sahih). When Marwan, the governor of Madinah, moved the sermon of the festival prayer to before the prayer, a man stood and objected, and Abu Sa'id said that he had done what was his duty, and told the saying of the Prophet ﷺ about changing what is wrong, with the hand, then the tongue, then the heart (Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, he spoke the truth to the rulers of his time, and still tried to hold the community together.

According to the early biographies, when Madinah was attacked in 63 AH, he was chased into a cave. A man who came in after him found him with his sword drawn, and Abu Sa'id answered him with the words of the righteous son of Adam, who would not raise his hand against his brother. The man asked whether he was Abu Sa'id, the Companion of the Prophet ﷺ, and when he said yes, asked him to pray for Allah's forgiveness for him, and left. According to the early biographies, he was later attacked in his home, tied up and robbed of everything in it. He died in Madinah, in old age, and had chosen the place in al-Baqi where he wished to be buried, and his two sons, one of them Abd ar-Rahman, who narrated from him, passed on much of his knowledge.

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