Bishr ibn al-Bara' ibn Ma'rur

ProfileBishr ibn al-Bara' ibn Ma'rur

Bishr (may Allah be pleased with him) was the eldest son of al-Bara' ibn Ma'rur of the Khazraj, the first man to pledge himself to the Prophet ﷺ at al-Aqabah. According to the early biographies, he went with his father to the pledge, and the Prophet ﷺ once asked the Banu Salimah who their chief was. They said al-Jadd ibn Qays, though they thought he was a miser, and the Prophet ﷺ said that no illness was worse than miserliness, and in one report named Bishr as their chief. The report in al-Adab al-Mufrad names Amr ibn al-Jamuh instead, so the sources differ.

According to the early biographies, he was paired in brotherhood with Waqid ibn Abdullah, one of the early emigrants, who stayed in his house. According to the early biographies, he was married to Qubaysah bint Sayfi, and they had a daughter, Aliyah. According to the early biographies, he fought at Badr as an archer and at Uhud, and according to the commentators, he was one of those on whom the calm fell at Uhud, so that his sword dropped from his hand for a moment and he took it up again firmly.

According to the commentators, a verse in Surah al-Baqarah about the book that confirmed what they had, which they had prayed for victory by, was revealed after a debate between Bishr, Mu'adh ibn Jabal and others with the Jews of Madinah, in which Sallam ibn Mishkam of the Banu Nadir said that he did not know the Prophet ﷺ as the one they had been waiting for.

Anas told that a Jewish woman brought a poisoned sheep to the Prophet ﷺ, who ate from it. She was brought to him, and he was asked whether they should kill her, and he said no. Anas said that he kept on seeing the effect of the poison on the roof of the Prophet's ﷺ mouth (Sahih al-Bukhari). Aishah told that in his last illness the Prophet ﷺ used to say that he still felt the pain of the food he ate at Khaybar, and that at that time he felt his aorta being cut by that poison (Sahih al-Bukhari). Abu Salamah told that the woman presented a roasted sheep to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ at Khaybar, and that Bishr ibn al-Bara' ibn Ma'rur died. The Prophet ﷺ sent for the woman, and asked her why she had done it, and ordered about her, and she was killed (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded hasan sahih). The accounts differ on whether she was killed, and the hadith in Sunan Abi Dawud says it was after the death of Bishr.

According to the early biographies, her name was Zaynab bint al-Harith, the wife of Sallam ibn Mishkam, and she asked which part of the sheep the Prophet ﷺ liked most, and was told the shoulder, and put the poison in it. According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ chewed the meat and told his Companions to stop, because it had told him that it was poisoned. Bishr had already swallowed it, and said that he disliked to spit it out in the presence of the Prophet ﷺ, and thought that the Prophet ﷺ would not have eaten if there was anything wrong with it. According to the early biographies, his skin turned green, and he was paralysed, and died of it. According to the early biographies, the woman said that her father, her husband and her brother had been killed at Khaybar, and that if the Prophet ﷺ was a false prophet the poison would rid them of him, and if a true one he would be saved.

According to the early biographies, his mother, Umm Bishr, grieved for him, and used to ask people dying in the clan to carry her greeting to her son.

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