Urwa ibn az-Zubayr

ProfileUrwa ibn az-Zubayr

Urwa (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of az-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and Asma bint Abi Bakr, and the brother of Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr. He was not a Companion, but one of the generation after them. According to the early biographies, he was born about 23 AH, at the end of the caliphate of Umar or the start of Uthman's, and his father used to play with him and call him the child of the blessed one whose father was az-Zubayr. He was one of the seven jurists of Madinah, a group of scholars, most of them sons of Companions, who were the authorities of the city before the founders of the schools of law.

According to the early biographies, the first thing he remembered was the siege of Uthman, when he was a small boy and his brother Abdullah killed a man who was climbing in, and he cried out in pride, and some of the besiegers stripped him and were about to beat him, until they saw he was too young. According to the early biographies, he was turned back from the Battle of the Camel as too young, and he chose scholarship over fighting. He was said to have been among four young men, in the Haram, who each said what he wished for: Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr to rule the two holy cities, Mus'ab the two Iraqs, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan to rule it all, and Urwa to gain knowledge, and each got what he wished.

According to the early biographies, his father told him and his brothers that they should seek knowledge while they were young, for one day they would be the old people of their people, and what was an old man worth if he was ignorant. According to the early biographies, he sat in the circles of every Companion in Madinah, and travelled to Egypt and Iraq to find them, and he was neat and clean, and handsome and well dressed. According to the early biographies, he was said to have married the daughters or granddaughters of scholars to gain access to their knowledge.

The knowledge that set him apart came from Aishah, his aunt. According to the early biographies, he used to go into her house freely every day, while others had to ask leave and sit behind a curtain, and she showed him where the Prophet ﷺ used to pray and sleep, and answered all his questions. He said that he never met anyone more eloquent than she, and when he was asked how he came to be so eloquent himself, he said, "Don't you know who my aunt is?" He said that four years before she died he realised that if she died that day, he would be satisfied that he had memorised every hadith she had. According to the early biographies, he said that the three who took most from her were himself, her freed woman, and her nephew Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, and that of the three he was the most exact. Urwa told, for example, that Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr was the dearest person to Aishah after the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr, that Abdullah said Aishah should be stopped from giving away her money, that she vowed never to speak to him, and that he asked some of the Quraysh to speak for him, until two men of Zuhrah got him into her room, and she freed ten slaves, then more, until forty, to make up for her vow (Sahih al-Bukhari). He is also named, in Bukhari, as the narrator of the list of those who spread the slander against Aishah (Sahih al-Bukhari).

Ibn Shihab told that Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz delayed a prayer, and Urwa told him that Gabriel had come down and led the Prophet ﷺ in prayer. Umar told him to be sure of what he was saying, and Urwa said that Bashir ibn Abi Mas'ud had narrated it from his father, that he heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say that Gabriel came and led him in prayer, and then he prayed with him, five times (Sahih al-Bukhari).

According to the early biographies, after the wars between his brother and Abd al-Malik ended, Abd al-Malik brought him to Damascus and treated him as a scholar, asking him questions about the Prophet ﷺ and the law, and Urwa wrote him letters in reply, which are among the earliest writings of the history of the Prophet's ﷺ life. According to the early biographies, Abd al-Malik gave him back the sword of Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr and asked him if he knew it, and Urwa said that the marks on it were from Badr and Yarmuk. According to the early biographies, he wrote books on law, burned them on the day of al-Harra, and regretted it afterwards, and said that he would rather have them than his family and wealth.

According to the early biographies, he used to read a quarter of the Qur'an from the copy every day and recite it again by night, and never missed it, even on the night his leg was cut off. He fasted most days. When the dates ripened in his garden, he opened the gates to the people to come and take. He said that good deeds have sisters and so do bad ones. According to the early biographies, he left Madinah when he was disturbed by the politics of the time, and built a house at al-Aqiq, with a well that was known for its sweet water.

According to the early biographies, on a journey to Damascus a part of his leg began to rot, and the doctors told him it would spread, and that he should drink wine to dull the pain while they cut it off. He refused, and asked them to wait until he prayed, and to cut it while he was prostrating, and they did, and he gave no cry. According to the early biographies, in the same journey his son was kicked by a horse and died. According to the early biographies, he said that praise was Allah's, who had given him four limbs and taken one and left three, and had given him four sons and taken one, and left three, and that if He had taken, He had given, and if He had tested, He had blessed. According to the early biographies, he died fasting in 94 AH, the year known as the year of the jurists because so many scholars died in it.

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