Ayyash ibn Abi Rabiah

ProfileAyyash ibn Abi Rabiah

Ayyash (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of Abi Rabiah ibn al-Mughirah, of the clan of Makhzum, a cousin of Umar ibn al-Khattab, and a half-brother of Abu Jahl through their mother. According to the early biographies, he accepted Islam early, shortly after the house of al-Arqam, and migrated to Abyssinia in the second migration with his wife Asma bint Salamah, and their son Abdullah was born there.

According to the early biographies, he came back and set out for Madinah with Umar. According to the early biographies, Abu Jahl and al-Harith ibn Hisham caught up with them on the road, and told Ayyash that his mother was ill and had sworn not to eat or drink or take shade until he came back to her. Umar warned him that they meant him harm, and that his mother would eat and drink when the heat grew, and offered to share his wealth with him, but Ayyash said that she was his mother and he would obey her in what was right, while holding to Islam. According to the early biographies, Umar then gave him his own fast camel, and told him to ride away if he saw anything wrong. On the way the two men tricked him into getting down, and bound him, and took him to Makkah in chains. According to the early biographies, he was held and tortured there for years.

Abu Hurayrah told that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, when he had said that Allah listens to the one who praises Him in the dawn prayer, used to stand and ask Allah to rescue al-Walid ibn al-Walid, Salamah ibn Hisham and Ayyash ibn Abi Rabiah, and the helpless among the Muslims, and to bring a famine upon Mudar like the famine in the time of Yusuf (Sahih Muslim).

According to the early biographies, he got out of Makkah around the time of the treaty of Hudaybiyyah, and joined the fugitives who gathered round Abu Basir, until the Prophet ﷺ took them in, and he was counted among the people of the two migrations. According to the commentators, some verses are connected with him: that the verse telling those who have wronged themselves not to despair of Allah's mercy was said of the ones forced back from Islam, that the opening verses of Surah al-Ankabut, about people being tested for their faith, were said of those held in Makkah, and that the verse forbidding a believer to kill a believer except by mistake was said of the day he killed a man who had tortured him, al-Harith ibn Yazid, not knowing that he had accepted Islam.

According to the early biographies, he fought in the conquest of Syria in the time of Umar, and many say that he was killed at Yarmuk.

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