Hassan ibn Thabit

ProfileHassan ibn Thabit

Hassan (may Allah be pleased with him) was of the Banu Najjar of the Khazraj in Madinah, the clan of the Prophet's ﷺ maternal relatives. According to the early biographies, he was already famous as a poet long before Islam, the voice of the Khazraj against the Aws, whose own poet was Qays ibn al-Khatim, and he was so well known that kings called him to their courts, among them the Ghassanids in Syria. He was already an old man when the Prophet ﷺ reached Madinah. According to the early biographies, his mother, his father and his brothers and sisters all became Muslim.

According to the early biographies, Hassan never fought in a single battle. He could not bear the battlefield, and the Prophet ﷺ excused him. At the Battle of the Trench, according to the early biographies, he was in the fortress with the women and children when a man crept up to it. When Safiyyah bint Abd al-Muttalib, the Prophet's ﷺ aunt, asked him to go out and deal with the man, he said that this was not for him, so she took a tent pole, struck the man herself, and then asked Hassan to strip him of his weapons, which he could not do either. His battle was fought with his tongue.

When the poets of Quraysh were attacking the Prophet ﷺ, he told his Companions that answering them would hurt Quraysh more than arrows. He sent first to Abdullah ibn Rawahah and then to Ka'b ibn Malik, and neither answer pleased him, and then he sent for Hassan. Hassan said that they had now called the lion who strikes with his tail, put out his tongue, and said that he would tear Quraysh with it as leather is torn. The Prophet ﷺ told him not to be hasty, and sent him to Abu Bakr, who knew the lineages of Quraysh best, so that Abu Bakr could separate the Prophet's ﷺ line from theirs. Hassan came back from Abu Bakr and said he would draw the Prophet ﷺ out from among them as a hair is drawn out of dough (Sahih Muslim; also Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, when Quraysh heard his verses, which named every clan of theirs without touching the Prophet ﷺ, they said that Abu Bakr must have had a hand in it.

The Prophet ﷺ told him to reply on his behalf and prayed that Allah support him with the Holy Spirit, who is Jibril (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim), and at the time of Banu Qurayzah told him to answer the enemy and said that Jibril was with him (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim). Aisha heard the Prophet ﷺ say that the Holy Spirit would keep supporting him as long as he defended Allah and His Messenger, and that Hassan's verses had comforted the believers and troubled the disbelievers (Sahih Muslim). A pulpit was set up in the mosque for him, from which he stood and defended the Prophet ﷺ (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded hasan; Jami at-Tirmidhi, graded hasan). In the long poem in Sahih Muslim he says that his father, his father's father and his own honour are a shield for the honour of Muhammad ﷺ, and he praises the horses and riders of the Muslims, and tells Quraysh that if they had not blocked the way they would have done the Umrah in peace. According to the early biographies, among his best-known verses is the line saying that his eye had never seen anyone better than the Prophet ﷺ and that no woman had given birth to anyone more beautiful.

Then he made a serious mistake. When the slander against Aisha was spread, Hassan was one of the Muslims who repeated it. The Prophet ﷺ recited the revelation that cleared her from the pulpit, and ordered the prescribed punishment for the two men and the woman (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded hasan; Jami at-Tirmidhi, graded sahih). According to the early biographies, they were Hassan, Mistah and Hamnah bint Jahsh, and according to the same books Safwan ibn al-Mu'attal, who had been accused with Aisha, struck Hassan with his sword when he met him, and the Prophet ﷺ told Hassan to let it go. Mistah was Abu Bakr's relative, and Abu Bakr had been supporting him, stopped when he heard, and then went back to supporting him after Allah told the believers to forgive (Sahih al-Bukhari).

Aisha did not hold it against him for life. When her nephew Urwah began abusing Hassan in front of her, she told him not to, because Hassan used to defend the Prophet ﷺ (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sahih Muslim). In his old age he was blind, and he would visit her and recite verses praising her as chaste, wise and never suspected, a woman who never backbit. She would tell him: "But you are not like that" (Sahih al-Bukhari). When Masruq asked her why she let him in, given the verse about the one who took the greater share of it, she asked what punishment could be worse than blindness, and added that Hassan used to defend the Messenger of Allah ﷺ (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sahih Muslim). When Umar once disapproved of verses being recited in the mosque, Hassan said that he had recited in that mosque in front of one better than Umar, and he asked Abu Hurayrah, by Allah, whether he had heard the Prophet ﷺ tell him to reply and ask Allah to support him with the Holy Spirit, and Abu Hurayrah said yes (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sahih Muslim).

WatchA lecture about Hassan ibn Thabit

Meet them inWhere they appear in the seerah

SourcesSources for this profile