Khalid ibn Sa'id ibn al-As

ProfileKhalid ibn Sa'id ibn al-As

Khalid (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of Sa'id ibn al-As ibn Umayyah ibn Abd Shams, the Umayyad chief known as Abu Uhayhah, and so one of the high families of Quraysh. He was not one of the weak of Makkah. According to the early biographies, he was handsome, and was called "the Taj", the one with the crown, because of a turban he wore in a way that no one else dared to copy. His kunya was Abu Sa'id. His father was one of the elders of the Jahiliyyah and held a high place among the Umayyads and in the care of their idols and festivals, and he died, before Badr, an unbeliever.

According to the early biographies, he saw a dream before he had heard that the Prophet ﷺ was calling to anything. He was standing before a valley of fire, burning so fiercely that it consumed itself, and his father was behind him, pushing him towards it. He fought his father off, and then the Prophet ﷺ came and took him by the waist-belt and pulled him back from the fire. He woke up frightened, and on his way out of the house he met Abu Bakr, who was known for his gift of interpreting dreams, and told him the dream. According to the early biographies, Abu Bakr smiled and said, "By Allah, Khalid, Allah wants good for you. This is Muhammad ﷺ, who calls to the worship of Allah alone and holds us back from the punishment of the hereafter." He took Khalid to the Prophet ﷺ, who was at Ajyad, praying, and Khalid asked what he called to. The Prophet ﷺ told him to worship Allah alone and to leave these stones, which could neither help nor harm, and Khalid accepted Islam on the spot. According to the early biographies, he was among the first five to accept Islam, and some narrations say that he accepted on the same day as Abu Bakr. His daughter Umm Khalid said that her father was the fifth in Islam. The Prophet ﷺ spoke of himself in the same picture: he said that his example and the people's was that of a man who lit a fire, and moths and insects began to fall into it, and he tried to stop them, but they overpowered him and rushed in, and so he took hold of them at the knots of their waists to keep them from the Fire, and they plunged in regardless (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sahih Muslim).

According to the early biographies, when Sa'id heard that Khalid had followed Muhammad ﷺ, he sent two of Khalid's brothers, Amr and Aban, to bring him. Khalid told his father it was true, and that he had left the idols, and his father told him to go back to the religion of his forefathers. Khalid said that he would not obey him in disobedience to Allah. Sa'id struck him on the head with a stick until his head was cracked and the blood ran, and had him shut in a room and starved for three days. He sent to ask whether Khalid had given way, and Khalid said that he would not follow his father in disobedience to Allah. According to the early biographies, Amr accepted Islam through him, and went with him to Abyssinia. Some accounts say that Aban believed at the same time, and others that Aban did not accept Islam until some years later, between Hudaybiyyah and Khaybar.

According to the early biographies, Khalid stayed in Abyssinia for more than ten years, and his daughter Umm Khalid was born there. When the Prophet ﷺ married Umm Habibah, the daughter of Abu Sufyan, who was a widow in Abyssinia, the Negus acted for him. According to the early biographies, she chose Khalid, who was of her own clan and her nearest kinsman there, as her wali, and the Negus gathered him with Ja'far and Abdullah ibn Hudhafah in his palace. The Negus spoke on behalf of the Prophet ﷺ, and Khalid praised Allah, sent blessings on the Prophet ﷺ and said that he had married Umm Habibah to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and asked Allah to bless him in her. The Negus then served a wedding feast, saying that it was the custom of the prophets. Umm Habibah told that her husband had died in Abyssinia, so the Negus married her to the Prophet ﷺ on his behalf, with a dowry of four thousand dirhams, and sent her to the Prophet ﷺ with Shurahbil ibn Hasanah (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih by al-Albani). That hadith does not name her wali.

Umm Khalid is a narrator in her own right. She told that she went to the Prophet ﷺ with her father, wearing a yellow shirt, and he said "Sanah, sanah", which the narrator says means "good" in Ethiopian. She started to play with the seal of prophethood between his shoulders, and her father rebuked her, and the Prophet ﷺ said, "Leave her," and prayed that she would wear the dress until it was worn out, three times (Sahih al-Bukhari). She also told that when she came from Ethiopia she was a young girl, and the Prophet ﷺ gave her a sheet with marks on it, and rubbed them with his hand, saying "Sanah, sanah" (Sahih al-Bukhari). She told that she heard the Prophet ﷺ seeking refuge with Allah from the punishment of the grave (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, she lived until about 90 AH.

According to the early biographies, Khalid came to Madinah with Ja'far and the others from Abyssinia after Khaybar, and the Prophet ﷺ was glad to see him, and made him governor of San'a in Yemen, and gave posts to his brothers. According to a report from his daughter, he was the first to write "In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate". After the Prophet ﷺ died, he served Abu Bakr, the man who had first led him to Islam, as a commander in the campaign against the Byzantines. According to the early biographies, in about 634 CE he married Umm Hakim, the widow of Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl, the night before the battle of Marj as-Saffar, and the next day she killed several of the Roman soldiers with a tent pole, and he was killed in the same battle. Others say that he fell at Ajnadayn. His brother Aban died in the same year.

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