Ubayy ibn Ka'b

ProfileUbayy ibn Ka'b

Ubayy (may Allah be pleased with him) was of the Banu Najjar of the Khazraj in Madinah, one of the few who could read and write before Islam, and about the same age as the Prophet ﷺ, much older than Mu'adh ibn Jabal and Zayd ibn Thabit. According to the early biographies, he was remembered as a man of very white hair, beard and clothes and very black eyes, and he became the first of the Ansar to write down the revelation for the Prophet ﷺ. According to the early biographies, he went to Makkah for the pledge at Aqabah, and fought at Badr.

The Prophet ﷺ told his Companions to learn the recitation of the Quran from four men: Ibn Mas'ud, Salim, Ubayy and Mu'adh ibn Jabal (Sahih al-Bukhari), and said that the best reciter among his community was Ubayy (Sunan at-Tirmidhi, graded sahih). When his daughter's child was dying and she sent for him, the Prophet ﷺ rose with several Companions, among them Ubayy ibn Ka'b, Mu'adh ibn Jabal and Zayd ibn Thabit (Sahih al-Bukhari). The Prophet ﷺ once asked him which verse in the Book of Allah was the greatest. He answered that it was the verse of the Throne, and the Prophet ﷺ struck him on the chest and said: may knowledge be easy for you (Sahih Muslim). On another day, the Prophet ﷺ told him that Allah had commanded him to recite to him, and Ubayy asked whether Allah had mentioned him by name. The Prophet ﷺ said yes, and Ubayy wept (Sahih al-Bukhari). No other Companion is known to have had this said to him.

According to the early biographies, Ubayy was a serious man and was always in the mosque of the Prophet ﷺ, reciting and teaching, and he used to finish the Quran every eight nights. He was reported to have said that Laylat al-Qadr was the night of the twenty-seventh (Sahih Muslim). The Prophet ﷺ stopped leading the voluntary night prayer in Ramadan for fear that it would become obligatory, and in Umar's time the people prayed in separate groups. Umar decided to gather them behind one good reciter and chose Ubayy ibn Ka'b (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, Umar said that anyone with a question about the Quran should go to Ubayy, and that Ubayy was the best of them in the Quran. According to the early biographies, Umar never made him a governor, and when Ubayy asked why, Umar said that he was afraid it would stain his religion. According to the early biographies, he wept at the verse about God's power to send punishment upon people, and prayed to be spared from seeing division among the Muslims. According to the early biographies, he lived long enough to be called the master of the Muslims by Umar, and when he died so many people poured into the streets of Madinah that a visitor from Iraq asked what was happening, and was told that the master of the Muslims had died. He was buried in al-Baqi'.

According to the early biographies, most of the recitations of the Quran trace back to him, and nine of the ten reciters of the canonical readings have chains that go to him. His son Muhammad, who narrated from him, was killed in the troubles at Madinah.

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