Habbar ibn al-Aswad

ProfileHabbar ibn al-Aswad

Habbar ibn al-Aswad was a man of the Banu Asad of Quraysh. According to the early biographies, he and his father were among those who mocked the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah.

According to the early biographies, after the Battle of Badr, Zaynab, the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ, was held in Makkah by the family of her husband Abu al-As, who had been taken prisoner at Badr. Abu al-As was freed on the condition that he let her go to her father. According to the early biographies, Quraysh did not like to see the Prophet's ﷺ daughter leave in the open, and sent men to turn her back. Zaynab was pregnant and travelling in her litter, and Habbar was the first to reach her, and thrust his spear at the litter, and she fell from her camel onto a rock and lost the child. According to the early biographies, she reached Madinah, and never fully recovered from it, and died some years later, and the Muslims counted her a martyr.

Abu Hurayrah told that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent a party and told them that if they found two named men, they should burn both of them. When they were about to set out, he said that he had ordered them to burn those two, but that it is only Allah who punishes with fire, so if they found them, they should kill them (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, Habbar was one of the two men named. According to the early biographies, at the Conquest he was among those the Prophet ﷺ said were to be killed even if they were found clinging to the cloth of the Ka'bah.

According to the early biographies, Habbar fled, and hid in the valleys and caves, and when the Prophet ﷺ went back to Madinah, he came there in secret, wrapped in his cloak, and stood before the Prophet ﷺ, and uncovered his face. According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ looked at him and turned his face away. Habbar said that he bore witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, that he had run away to the lands of the foreigners, and that he had remembered the Prophet's ﷺ forgiveness and mercy to those who wronged him. He asked forgiveness for all the harm he had done, and admitted his sin. According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ told him that he was forgiven, that Allah had been good to him in guiding him to Islam, and that Islam wipes out what came before it.

According to the early biographies, he later settled in Syria and took part in the conquests, and had sons who narrated hadith. According to the early biographies, he died in Syria.

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