Asim ibn Thabit

ProfileAsim ibn Thabit

Asim (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of Thabit, of the Banu Amr ibn Awf of the Ansar of Quba, the clan that first received the Prophet ﷺ. According to the early biographies, his father was Thabit ibn Abi al-Aqlah, his mother Ash-Shamus accepted Islam, and she was the sister of Hanzalah, the Companion the angels washed. His sister Jamilah married Umar ibn al-Khattab, and Umar named his son Asim after him. Sahih al-Bukhari calls him the grandfather of Asim ibn Umar, which fits this. According to the early biographies, he was a young man when the Prophet ﷺ came to Madinah, and he was known as an archer, and as a man of long nights of prayer.

According to the early biographies, he fought at Badr, where he killed one of the leaders of Quraysh, and he stayed with the Prophet ﷺ at Uhud when many fled. According to the early biographies, at Uhud he killed two sons of Sulafah bint Sa'd, who had come out with Quraysh. According to the early biographies, she swore that she would drink wine from his skull, and offered a reward to anyone who brought it to her.

Abu Hurayrah told that the Prophet ﷺ sent ten men as scouts under Asim ibn Thabit al-Ansari. When they reached a place between Usfan and Makkah, the Banu Lihyan, a branch of Hudhayl, heard of them and sent archers after them. The archers followed their tracks until they found the date stones that the scouts had eaten, and said that these were the dates of Yathrib, and kept following. When Asim and his companions saw them, they went up onto high ground, and the archers surrounded them and told them to come down and surrender, with a promise and a covenant that none of them would be killed. Asim said that, for himself, he would never come down under the protection of an unbeliever, and he said, "O Allah, tell Your Prophet about us." The archers shot at them and killed Asim. Three came down on their promise, Khubayb, Zayd ibn ad-Dathinah and another man. When the archers took hold of them, they untied the strings of their bows and tied them with them, and the third man said that this was the first betrayal, and that he would not go with them, and they dragged him and killed him. They took Khubayb and Zayd to Makkah and sold them there (Sahih al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ told his Companions on the same day what had happened to the ten (Sahih al-Bukhari).

Quraysh heard of Asim's death. Some of them sent men to bring back a part of his body, so that his death might be known for certain, since he had killed one of their leaders at Badr. But Allah sent a swarm of wasps, which guarded his body, and the men could not cut anything from it (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, they waited for night, hoping the wasps would leave, and a flood came down the valley in the dark and carried his body away, so that they never got it. According to the early biographies, he is remembered as the one the wasps protected. According to the early biographies, he had sworn that no unbeliever would ever touch him, and that he would never touch one, and when Umar heard how he died, he said that Allah protects His believing servant, and had guarded Asim in death as he had kept his oath in life.

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