Mu'adh ibn Jabal

ProfileMu'adh ibn Jabal

Mu'adh (may Allah be pleased with him) was of the Banu Salimah, a clan of the Khazraj in Madinah. He was a tall, handsome young man, with curly hair, big eyes and a lovely smile, and when he spoke people listened to him. According to the early biographies, he was only about eleven or twelve when Mus'ab ibn Umayr came to Madinah, and he accepted Islam at his hands. His father had died before Islam, and he was one of the Ansar who went to Makkah for the pledge at Aqabah. According to the early biographies, he and his friend Mu'adh ibn Amr ibn al-Jamuh took the idol of Mu'adh ibn Amr's father, a chief of the clan, and threw it into a rubbish pit, and it was this that brought the old man to Islam. According to the early biographies, he argued with the People of the Book of Madinah, saying that they themselves had told the Ansar of a coming prophet and now rejected him.

When the Prophet ﷺ came to Madinah, he kept him close. According to the early biographies, he made Mu'adh the brother of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, and they spent their nights praying. He was one of those from whom the Prophet ﷺ told people to learn the recitation of the Quran (Sahih al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ said that the most knowledgeable of his community about the lawful and unlawful was Mu'adh ibn Jabal, that Zayd ibn Thabit was the most knowledgeable about inheritance, and that Ubayy ibn Ka'b was the best reciter (Sunan at-Tirmidhi, graded sahih). He was a teenager when the Prophet ﷺ said it, with senior Companions around. According to the early biographies, he fought at Badr when he was about fifteen, and the Prophet ﷺ allowed him to give rulings in his lifetime.

Much of what he reported he heard while riding behind the Prophet ﷺ. Once the Prophet ﷺ called his name three times as they rode, and Mu'adh answered each time. Then he told him that Allah would save from the Fire anyone who sincerely testified that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad ﷺ is His Messenger. Mu'adh asked whether he should tell people so that they would rejoice, and the Prophet ﷺ said that they would then rely on it. Mu'adh told it only when he was dying, so as not to hide knowledge (Sahih al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ took his hand and told him that he loved him, and told him never to leave out, after every prayer, a prayer asking Allah to help him to remember Him, to thank Him and to worship Him well (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih). Once he led his people in the night prayer with a very long surah. A man left the prayer and complained, and the Prophet ﷺ asked Mu'adh three times whether he was putting the people to trial, and told him to recite shorter surahs, because the old, the weak and the needy pray behind him (Sahih al-Bukhari). Mu'adh once asked about an act that would take him into Paradise, and the Prophet ﷺ told him of the pillars and then of fasting, charity and prayer in the depths of the night, and said that people are thrown on their faces into the Fire because of what their tongues have earned (Sunan at-Tirmidhi, graded hasan). At Tabuk, when someone said that Ka'b ibn Malik had stayed behind because of his fine clothes, Mu'adh answered that this was a bad thing to say, and that they knew only good of Ka'b (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, he stood at night saying that the stars had risen and the eyes had closed, and that he was running from the Fire too slowly and seeking Paradise too weakly, and had nothing to bring except the declaration of faith.

According to the early biographies, after the conquest of Makkah the Prophet ﷺ left him there for a year to teach the people their religion, a young man of Madinah teaching Makkah. He was then sent to Yemen. The Prophet ﷺ told him that he was going to the People of the Book, and to begin by calling them to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad ﷺ is His Messenger, then to tell them of the five prayers, then of the zakat taken from their rich and given to their poor. He was not to take the best of their wealth, and was to fear the prayer of the wronged, because there is no screen between it and Allah (Sahih al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ told him and Abu Musa to make things easy and not hard, and to give good news and not drive people away (Sahih al-Bukhari). The two of them once talked about how they spent their nights, and Mu'adh said that he hoped for the reward of his sleep as he did for the reward of his prayer (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ walked beside his camel as he left Madinah, told him he might not see him again and that he might pass the mosque and his grave, and Mu'adh wept. He said that those closest to him were the people of taqwa, wherever they were. Mu'adh did not see him again.

According to the early biographies, Umar sent him to Syria, where he became a teacher and judge, and said that anyone who wanted to ask about the law should go to Mu'adh. He sent each of the two, Abu Ubaydah and Mu'adh, a gift of money, and each gave it to the poor, and Umar laughed and said that they were brothers. When the plague broke out at Amwas, Abu Ubaydah died, and Mu'adh took command, and lost his two daughters, his two sons and his wife to it. According to the early biographies, when his son Abd ar-Rahman was dying, the boy answered his father's question about how he was with a verse of the Quran, and Mu'adh answered with another. He told those around him who wanted to learn to go to Ibn Mas'ud, Salman, Abu ad-Darda and Abdullah ibn Salam. According to the early biographies, his last words were a prayer that Allah take his soul, since Allah knew how much his heart loved Him. He died at about thirty-three or thirty-four years old.

WatchA lecture about Mu'adh ibn Jabal

Meet them inWhere they appear in the seerah

SourcesSources for this profile