Suraqah ibn Malik

ProfileSuraqah ibn Malik

Suraqah (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of Malik, and of the Banu Mudlij, a clan of Kinanah who lived near Makkah. Sahih al-Bukhari calls him Suraqah ibn Ju'shum, after his grandfather. According to the early biographies, he was a horseman and a tracker who could read footprints in the desert, and his kunya was Abu Sufyan. According to the early biographies, he took little interest in Islam in the Makkan years.

He told, in Sahih al-Bukhari, that the messengers of Quraysh came to the tribes with an offer of a reward equal to the blood-money for anyone who killed or captured the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and Abu Bakr. A man of the Banu Mudlij came to the gathering where he sat, and said that he had just seen some people far off on the seashore, and thought they were Muhammad ﷺ and his companions. Suraqah knew it must be they, but told the man that he had only seen so-and-so, whom they had watched set out. He waited a while, then went home, told his slave-girl to bring his horse behind a hillock, took his spear and slipped out by the back door with its tip low to the ground, and rode. As he came near them his horse stumbled and he fell. He took out his divining arrows and drew lots on whether he should harm them, and the lot he disliked came out. He mounted again and went on, paying the arrows no heed. He heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ reciting the Qur'an, and the Prophet ﷺ did not look around, while Abu Bakr looked around often. Then the forelegs of his horse sank into the ground up to the knees, and he fell. He rebuked it, and it got up, but could hardly pull its legs out, and when it stood straight, the dust rose from its legs like smoke. He drew the arrows again, and the same lot came out. So he called to them for safety, and they stopped, and he went to them. Seeing how he had been kept back from harming them, he knew in his heart that the cause of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would prevail. He told them of the reward offered for the Prophet ﷺ, and of all that Quraysh had planned for them, and offered them food and goods for the journey. They would take nothing and asked nothing of him, but the Prophet ﷺ said, "Do not tell others about us." Suraqah asked for a written security, and the Prophet ﷺ told Amir ibn Fuhayrah to write it on a parchment, and then went on his way (Sahih al-Bukhari).

Anas told that Abu Bakr saw a rider coming after them and said so, and the Prophet ﷺ looked back and prayed that Allah bring him down. The horse threw him and got up whinnying. Suraqah said that the Prophet ﷺ should command him as he wished, and the Prophet ﷺ told him to stay where he was and let no one reach them. In the first part of the day, he was an enemy of the Prophet ﷺ, and in the last part of it, he was a guard for him (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, he turned back each searcher he met, saying that he had looked and found nothing.

According to the early biographies, as he was leaving, the Prophet ﷺ called to him and asked how it would be for him when he wore the bracelets of Kisra. According to the early biographies, he met the Prophet ﷺ again years later, after Hunayn and the siege of Taif, brought out the parchment, and accepted Islam. According to the early biographies, many years later, when the treasures of Kisra came to Madinah after the conquest of Persia, Umar had Suraqah put on the bracelets of Kisra and praised Allah, who had taken them from Kisra, the king of Persia, and given them to a Bedouin of the Banu Mudlij.

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