Tufayl ibn Amr ad-Dawsi

ProfileTufayl ibn Amr ad-Dawsi

Tufayl (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of Amr, of the Daws, a tribe of the Azd who lived in the mountains south of Makkah. According to the early biographies, he was their chief and a poet, a clever and well-spoken man whom people listened to, and he came to Makkah for the pilgrimage and the markets. According to the early biographies, he was called Dhu an-Nur, the man with the light, for a reason told below.

According to the early biographies, the leaders of Quraysh feared what he might hear. They went to him when he came and warned him against the Prophet ﷺ, saying that his words were like magic, that he parted a man from his father, his brother and his wife, and that they feared the same for him and for his people. Tufayl said that they went on until he decided to stuff cotton in his ears so that he would not hear a word. He went to the Sacred Mosque, and saw the Prophet ﷺ standing in prayer by the Ka'bah. He stood near him, and Allah willed that he hear some of what he recited, and he thought it fine speech. He said to himself that he was a poet and a man of sense, who could tell the good from the bad, so why should he not listen, and accept it if it was good and leave it if it was bad. He followed the Prophet ﷺ to his house, told him what Quraysh had said and how he had stopped his ears, and asked him to tell him what he had. The Prophet ﷺ presented Islam to him and recited the Qur'an, and Tufayl accepted Islam.

According to the early biographies, he went back to his people, and asked the Prophet ﷺ to pray for a sign that would help him with them. According to the early biographies, a light appeared between his eyes as he came to the valley of his people, and he asked Allah to put it somewhere other than his face, in case they took it for a punishment for leaving their religion, and it moved to the end of his whip, like a hanging lamp. According to the early biographies, his father, an old man, and his wife accepted Islam, but the rest of Daws held back, and only a few followed, among them Abu Hurayrah. According to the early biographies, he was told to go back to them and to be gentle.

Abu Hurayrah told that Tufayl ibn Amr ad-Dausi came to the Prophet ﷺ and said that Daws had disobeyed and refused, and asked him to pray against them. The people thought he would, but the Prophet ﷺ said, "O Allah, guide Daws and bring them" (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, he went back and kept calling them, and years later he came to Madinah with many families of Daws, while the Prophet ﷺ was at Khaybar.

Jabir told that Tufayl ibn Amr ad-Dausi came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked whether he wanted a strong fortress with protection, as Daws had a fortress from the days before Islam. The Prophet ﷺ declined, because that honour had been kept for the Ansar. When the Prophet ﷺ migrated to Madinah, Tufayl migrated as well, and a man of his tribe with him. The climate of Madinah did not suit the man and he fell ill, lost patience, took the head of an arrow and cut his finger joints, and bled until he died. Tufayl saw him in a dream in a good state, but with his hands wrapped. He asked what Allah had done with him, and the man said that Allah had forgiven him for his migration to the Prophet ﷺ. Tufayl asked why his hands were wrapped, and he said that he had been told that Allah would not mend what he had himself ruined. Tufayl told the Prophet ﷺ, and he prayed, "O Allah, forgive his hands too" (Sahih Muslim).

According to the early biographies, at the Conquest of Makkah he asked to destroy the idol of Amr ibn Humamah of the Daws, called Dhu al-Kaffayn, and he burned it. According to the early biographies, after the Prophet's ﷺ death he fought with the army of Abu Bakr against those who had left Islam, and fell as a martyr at Yamamah, in the war against Musaylimah. According to the early biographies, before the battle he told his companions a dream, that his head was shaved off, that a bird flew out of his mouth, that it entered a woman, and that his son was looking for him and could not find him. He said that the head was his death, the bird was his soul, the woman was the earth he would be buried in, and that his son would not be a martyr with him that day. According to the early biographies, it was so. His son Amr lost a hand in the battle, and afterwards, when he grieved, Umar told him that no one among them had a part of himself in Paradise already but he, and he later fell as a martyr at Yarmuk.

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