Ubaydullah ibn Abbas

ProfileUbaydullah ibn Abbas

Ubaydullah (may Allah be pleased with him) was a son of al-Abbas, and the brother of Abdullah ibn Abbas, who was about a year older. The name means the little Abdullah. According to the early biographies, he was a small child in the time of the Prophet ﷺ, and remembered some of it. According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ would line up Abdullah, Ubaydullah and Kathir, three sons of al-Abbas, and stand away from them and say that he would give something to whoever reached him first, and they ran to him and jumped on his chest and back, and he kissed and hugged them.

According to the early biographies, he took his father's skill as a merchant, and became very rich, and was known for his generosity, and for being a noble man to look at. According to the early biographies, on a journey he and his party lost their way and ran out of food, and came to a bedouin whose only possession was a pregnant goat. He did not know who they were, and slaughtered it to feed them. When Ubaydullah got home, he sent the man five hundred dinars. One of his servants said that five would have been generous. Ubaydullah said that the man was more generous than they were, for he had given all he had, and they had given only some of theirs.

According to the early biographies, when Abdullah ibn Abbas taught at Madinah, with students lined up at his door, Ubaydullah did not envy him. He took to supporting the students, and filled his brother's house with trays of bread and meat, so that those who studied were fed. According to the early biographies, the bedouin used to say that whoever wanted the world should go to Ubaydullah, and whoever wanted the hereafter should go to Abdullah. According to the early biographies, he was thought to be one of the three most generous men of the Hijaz in his time, together with Abdullah ibn Ja'far and one other.

According to the early biographies, Ali made him governor of Yemen for a short time, in 36 or 37 AH, and he also led the pilgrims on the Hajj. According to the early biographies, he died in Madinah when he was very old, about eighty-seven, and was buried in al-Baqi.

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