Salim mawla Abi Hudhayfah

ProfileSalim mawla Abi Hudhayfah

Salim (may Allah be pleased with him) was the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah ibn Utbah, who adopted him as a son. According to the early biographies, he was of Persian descent, and nothing is known of his family or of his life before Islam. Aishah told that Salim had been the freed slave of a woman of the Ansar, and that Abu Hudhayfah, who had fought at Badr, adopted him as his son, as the Prophet ﷺ had adopted Zayd, and married him to his niece Hind bint al-Walid ibn Utbah (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, she was one of the best of the unmarried women who migrated to Madinah, known for her beauty and wealth, and some call her Fatimah. So the daughter of one of the leading families of Quraysh married a man with no tribe, no wealth and no known father.

When Allah revealed the verses telling people to call adopted sons by the names of their fathers, and those whose fathers were not known to be called brothers in religion and freed men, Zayd went back to being Zayd ibn Harithah, but Salim had no father's name to go back to, and so he remained Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah (Sahih al-Bukhari). Sahlah, the wife of Abu Hudhayfah, said that they had considered Salim their son, and that he came into their house freely, and that she saw something in the face of Abu Hudhayfah. The Prophet ﷺ told her to nurse him, and she asked how she could nurse a grown man, and he smiled and said that he knew he was a grown man (Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, people also called him Salim the righteous, or Salim of the righteous, until they settled on calling him the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah.

According to the early biographies, he accepted Islam, with Abu Hudhayfah and Sahlah, very early, while he was still young, before the house of al-Arqam was opened. In Makkah, when the Prophet ﷺ was not present, he led the believers in prayer in the house of al-Arqam, because of his Quran. According to the early biographies, he migrated with Abu Hudhayfah and Sahlah to Abyssinia, and then to Madinah. Because he was the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah, he had the protection of his tribe, and so he could be among men who would otherwise have looked down on him, and who did not know what to make of a Persian ex-slave in their company.

Abdullah ibn Amr told that he heard the Prophet ﷺ say, "Learn the recitation of the Quran from four: Ibn Mas'ud, Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah, Ubayy and Mu'adh ibn Jabal" (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sahih Muslim). Aishah told that she was late returning one night from the evening prayer, and that the Prophet ﷺ asked where she had been, and she said that she had been listening to the recitation of one of his Companions, and had never heard a recitation or a voice like his. The Prophet ﷺ got up, and she got up with him, to listen. Then he turned to her and said, "This is Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah. Praise be to Allah, Who has created such men among my community" (Sunan Ibn Majah, graded sahih).

Ibn Umar told that when the first emigrants came to al-Usbah, a place near Quba, before the Prophet ﷺ arrived, Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah, led them in prayer, because he knew the Quran better than the rest of them (Sahih al-Bukhari). Among those who prayed behind him were Abu Bakr, Umar, Abu Salamah and Amir ibn Rabi'ah (Sahih al-Bukhari), and Abu Dawud's narration, graded sahih, names Umar and Abu Salamah. So he was the imam of the emigrants at Makkah and at Quba, until the Prophet ﷺ arrived and took his place.

According to the early biographies, he fought in every battle with the Prophet ﷺ, and was known for his courage. After each battle Abu Hudhayfah would look for him, and he for Abu Hudhayfah. He held himself to the Quran in everything. When he saw a good deed that was needed, he would say, "Woe to me, a bearer of the Quran, if I do not do it," and when he saw a wrong, he would say that a hafiz of the Quran had to hold himself to a different standard.

At Yamamah, in 12 AH, he insisted on being at the front, and he was beside Zayd ibn al-Khattab, who fell that day. Umar used to say that Zayd had beaten him in two things, since he had accepted Islam before him and been killed as a martyr before him. According to the early biographies, as the Muslims were struck down one by one, Salim shouted, "People of the Quran, adorn the Quran with your deeds!" and then, of himself, "What a wretched bearer of the Quran I would be, if the Muslims were attacked from my side." According to the early biographies, he carried the banner, and his right hand was cut off, and he took it in his left and went on, reciting the verse in Surah Al Imran that says how many a prophet there was who fought, with many scholars and devout men with him, who did not lose heart for what befell them in the way of Allah, nor weaken, nor give in, and that Allah loves those who are steadfast (Surah Al Imran, 3:146). Then he was struck in the chest.

According to the early biographies, when they found him lying on the field, his blood running, his first question was what had happened to Abu Hudhayfah. They told him that Abu Hudhayfah had been killed, and he asked them to put him close to him. They told him that Abu Hudhayfah had fallen in the same place, right beside him. He smiled, and died. The two who had accepted Islam together were buried together. Zayd ibn Thabit told that Abu Bakr sent for him when the people of Yamamah had been killed, and that Umar, who was sitting with him, had told Abu Bakr that the casualties among those who knew the Quran by heart had been heavy on the day of Yamamah, and that he feared a large part of the Quran would be lost unless it was collected (Sahih al-Bukhari).

According to the early biographies, when Umar was dying, he spoke of the men he would have appointed over the Muslims if they had been alive, and named Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah, and then Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah.

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