50 Fun Facts About Sahaba

Which companion, freed from slavery by Abu Bakr, did Muhammad choose as the first caller to prayer?

Bilal ibn Rabah was picked for his deep, carrying voice, and after Mecca fell in 630 he climbed onto the Kaaba itself to give the call.

What does Islamic tradition call 619, when Muhammad lost both his wife Khadijah and his protector Abu Talib?

The Year of Sorrow took away Muhammad's closest supporter and his clan's protection at once, and the Quraysh treated him far more harshly once Abu Talib was gone.

Which tactic did Salman the Persian propose to defend Medina against 10,000 confederates in 627?

Digging a trench was a Persian idea new to Arabian warfare; the ditch took six days to dig, and after some twenty nights the besiegers broke up in wind and rain.

Caliph Umar was stabbed with a double-bladed dagger in 644 while doing what in the mosque of Medina?

Leading the congregational prayer left Umar exposed to Abu Lu'lu'a, a Persian captive; before he died the caliph appointed a six-man council to choose his successor.

How did Ali ibn Abi Talib help Muhammad slip out of Mecca in 622 past the assassins posted at his door?

Ali slept in the Prophet's bed so the watchers saw a sleeping figure all night; the plotters had picked one warrior from every Meccan clan so that no single clan could be blamed.

Why was the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, given the title Dhu al-Nurayn, 'possessor of two lights'?

He married two of Muhammad's daughters, Ruqayya and then, after her death, Umm Kulthum, so that he was twice the Prophet's son-in-law.

Which uncle of Muhammad, a hunter who converted after striking Abu Jahl with his bow, was killed at Uhud?

Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib was brought down by a javelin thrown by Wahshi, an enslaved Abyssinian promised his freedom for the deed, and is honoured as Sayyid al-Shuhada, chief of the martyrs.

Which companion narrated more hadiths than anyone else despite spending only about three years with Muhammad?

Abu Hurayra means 'father of the kitten', a name he got for the stray cat he carried in his sleeve; he is credited with at least 5,374 hadiths, having converted only in 629.

Which wife of Muhammad narrated over 2,000 hadiths and directed one side at the 656 Battle of the Camel?

Aisha bint Abi Bakr also closes the Prophet's story: he died in her apartment and was buried there, beneath what is now the Green Dome of the mosque in Medina.

Which Meccan cavalry commander at Uhud later converted and led the Muslim armies that took Damascus?

Khalid ibn al-Walid was named Sayf Allah, 'the Sword of God', by Muhammad for saving the army at Mu'tah in 629, and went on to win Yarmouk, the battle that decided Syria in 636.

Which honorific did Muhammad give Abu Bakr for believing the Night Journey account at once, when others doubted?

Al-Siddiq means 'the truthful', and Abu Bakr kept the title for the rest of his life, through his election as first caliph in 632 and the Ridda wars that filled most of his short reign.

The Quran's phrase 'the second of the two' (9:40) refers to Abu Bakr sheltering with Muhammad in what hiding place?

A cave on Mount Thawr, south of Mecca, hid the pair for three days while the Quraysh searched, and Abu Bakr's own children brought them news and food until the road north was clear.

Caliph Umar established the Islamic calendar around 638; from which event does it count its years?

The Hijra from Mecca to Yathrib in 622 became year one, chosen over Muhammad's birth or his first revelation; Umar acted after a complaint from his governor Abu Musa al-Ash'ari.

Which scribe of Muhammad, turned away from Badr at eleven, led the committee behind Uthman's standard Quran?

Zayd ibn Thabit had already gathered the Quran once for Abu Bakr, from parchment, palm stalks, shoulder bones and memory, and Muhammad had him learn Hebrew so he could read foreign letters.

Ali ibn Abi Talib was cut down by a poisoned sword in 661 in the mosque of which city, his capital?

Kufa had become Ali's seat because its garrison could field the troops Medina could not; the attacker, Ibn Muljam, was a Kharijite, and Ali died of the head wound about two days later.

Which companion, remembered as the first Muslim archer, led the army that broke the Sasanians at al-Qadisiyyah?

Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas outlived every other companion whom Muhammad had promised Paradise, dying at about eighty around 674, and Chinese Muslim tradition even credits him with bringing Islam to Guangzhou.

Which companion lost two front teeth at Uhud while pulling links of Muhammad's armour from his cheek?

Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, whom Muhammad called 'the trustworthy one of this nation', went on to command the conquest of Syria and died in the plague of Amwas in 639.

Which brother of Ali spoke for the Muslim exiles before the Christian king of Abyssinia, quoting Surah Maryam?

Ja'far ibn Abi Talib chose the chapter on Mary and Jesus to show the king what Muslims believed; he died at Mu'tah in 629 after both his arms were cut off holding the standard.

Which once-wealthy young Meccan became Islam's first envoy to Yathrib and later died carrying the banner at Uhud?

Mus'ab ibn Umayr's preaching won over much of Medina before Muhammad arrived; at his burial the one cloth he owned could cover either his head or his feet, not both.

Which woman tore her belt in two to tie the provisions for Muhammad's flight from Mecca in 622?

Asma bint Abi Bakr was given the title Dhat al-Nitaqayn, 'She of the Two Belts', by Muhammad himself, and lived to about a hundred, dying in 692 days after her son Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr was killed.

Which freed slave, adopted by Muhammad as a son, was appointed first commander of the 3,000 men sent to Mu'tah in 629?

Zayd ibn Harithah had chosen to stay with Muhammad when his own father and uncle came to ransom him, and Muhammad never sent him out with an army without putting him in command of it.

Which mother of Ammar ibn Yasir, speared by Abu Jahl in Mecca, is honoured as the first martyr of Islam?

Sumayya bint Khayyat was tortured beside her husband Yasir for refusing to renounce her faith; tradition records Muhammad passing the family and telling them to be patient, for their meeting place was Paradise.

Which woman of Medina, later wounded twelve times in one battle, is remembered for defending Muhammad in person at Uhud?

Nusaybah bint Ka'b, known as Umm Umarah, had come to the field to carry water and tend the wounded, and she later fought at Hunayn and in the wars after Muhammad's death, where she lost a hand.

Which ascetic companion, a critic of hoarded riches, died alone at al-Rabadha in 652 as Muhammad had foretold?

Abu Dharr al-Ghifari came from a tribe that lived by raiding caravans, preached that surplus riches should be given away, and sent back three hundred dinars that the governor of Syria offered him.

Which companion, renamed from 'Abd Amr' by Muhammad, made the final choice of Uthman as third caliph in 644?

Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf reached Medina with nothing and built a fortune trading; at his death he owned a hundred horses, a thousand camels and ten thousand sheep, and he once brought a caravan of 700 camels into the city.

Which Medinan chief, dying of an arrow wound from the 627 siege, did Muhammad mourn with the words 'the Throne shook'?

Sa'd ibn Mu'adh had brought his whole clan into Islam on the day he converted, and before Badr he promised Muhammad that the Medinans would follow him even into the sea.

What did Suhayb 'the Roman', raised in Byzantine captivity, surrender to the Quraysh to be allowed to leave for Medina?

All his wealth was the price, and when he reached Muhammad he was greeted with the words 'your transaction has been fruitful'; Quran 2:207, on the man who sells himself for God's pleasure, is held to honour the bargain.

Muhammad foretold that Ammar ibn Yasir would be killed by 'a wicked band'; at which battle of 657 did he die?

Siffin, fought on the upper Euphrates between Ali and Mu'awiya, cost Ammar his life at about ninety, and both sides read the prophecy as marking which of them was in the right.

Talha ibn Ubayd Allah took an arrow aimed at Muhammad's face at Uhud on his own hand, at the cost of what?

Two of his fingers, the index and middle, were lost and the hand was left paralysed, which earned Talha the byname 'the living martyr'; he died in 656 at the Battle of the Camel.

Umar burst in on which companion, his own brother-in-law, reading the Quran at home, and left a convert?

Sa'id ibn Zayd later counted himself among the companions Muhammad promised Paradise, naming nine and hinting that the tenth was himself; he missed Badr only because Muhammad had sent him to scout the caravan.

Muhammad sent Mu'adh ibn Jabal, whom he praised as most learned in the lawful and unlawful, to govern where?

Yemen was a long way from Medina, and Mu'adh went as governor to collect the zakat and teach; he died young in the plague of Amwas in Syria in 639.

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, keeper of Muhammad's sandals, was beaten by the Quraysh for doing what at the Kaaba?

Reciting the Quran aloud, he chose the chapter known as 'The Merciful', and the Quraysh hit him in the face until he stopped; Muhammad later said the thin legs they laughed at would outweigh Mount Uhud on the scales.

What did Abu Dujana wear at Uhud, after accepting Muhammad's sword, to show he meant to fight to the death?

A red headband was his known signal, worn with a strut before the enemy lines, and he then took several arrows in his back shielding Muhammad; he died of wounds in 632 fighting Musaylima's rebels.

Which servant of Muhammad, presented by his mother at age ten, died in Basra in 712 among the last companions alive?

Anas ibn Malik was nicknamed Khadim al-Nabi, 'servant of the Prophet', served ten years, and outlived Muhammad by eighty years to become one of the most quoted transmitters of hadith.

Which poet of Medina, said to have lived sixty years before Islam and sixty after, wrote verse defending Muhammad?

Hassan ibn Thabit is called Islam's first religious poet; he had recited at al-Hira and Damascus in his youth, and his poems answering the Quraysh satirists double as a record of the period's events.

Salman the Persian spent his first sixteen years training as a priest of which religion before seeking a prophet?

Zoroastrianism lost him to a group of Christians he met, and he followed their teachers through Syria until one told him a prophet was coming in Arabia; betrayed and sold into slavery, he met Muhammad in Medina.

Heavy losses among Quran memorisers at which 632 battle against Musaylima led Abu Bakr to order the Quran collected?

Yamama cost about 360 memorisers, and Umar pressed a reluctant Abu Bakr to have the scattered verses gathered, a task the young scribe assigned to it said felt heavier than moving a mountain.

Which state treasury did Umar found to pay stipends and support the poor, an institution later caliphates kept?

Bayt al-mal, the treasury Umar set up in Medina, paid pensions to the poor, the old, orphans and the disabled regardless of their religion, and became the foundation of the early state's welfare system.

The Ansar, the Medinan 'helpers' who sheltered the Meccan Muslims, came from which two tribes?

Aws and Khazraj had fought each other for generations before Islam, and it was their pledges to Muhammad at Aqaba that opened Yathrib to him in 622.

After Badr in 624, literate Meccan prisoners could earn their release by doing what?

Teaching ten Muslims to read and write counted as a prisoner's full ransom, an unusual price in a society where literacy was rare, while the rest were freed for payment.

Roughly how many Muslims fought at Badr in 624 against a Meccan force several times their number?

About 313 is the accepted figure, against some 1,300 Quraysh; the Quran calls the day Yawm al-Furqan, 'the day of the criterion', and those who fought there were honoured for life as the Badriyyun.

At Uhud in 625, Muhammad posted fifty archers on a hill with orders never to leave; what did most of them do?

Most of them ran down to loot the camp the moment the Meccans broke, and the Meccan cavalry swept around the open hill to take the Muslims from behind, turning a win into a rout.

After the first revelation, Khadijah took Muhammad to which Christian cousin of hers, who confirmed he was a prophet?

Waraqa ibn Nawfal, an old man who had studied the scriptures, said the greatest law that had come to Moses had now come to Muhammad, and called him the prophet of his people.

Under Umar, Salman the Persian became the first Muslim governor of which city, taken from the Sasanians in 637?

Ctesiphon, on the Tigris near modern Baghdad, had been the seat of the Sasanian kings; Salman, Persian by birth, governed it after its fall and died there around 653.

Which companion did Muhammad trust with the hypocrites' names, and send alone by night to spy on the 627 besiegers?

Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman crept into the confederate lines in the storm and brought back word that the Quraysh were packing up to leave; he died in Iraq in 656, forty days after Uthman.

Uthman equipped a third of the army and gave a thousand gold dinars for which 630 expedition to the north?

Tabuk was the 'army of hardship': 30,000 men marched north in summer heat toward Byzantine territory without a battle being fought, and Uthman's contribution was the largest any companion made.

Fatima, Muhammad's daughter and wife of Ali, died how long after her father in 632?

Within six months of losing her father she was gone too, leaving Hasan, Husayn, Zaynab and Umm Kulthum, and the exact site of her grave in Medina remains uncertain.

Uthman ibn Affan, one of the richest merchants of Mecca, belonged to which clan of the Quraysh?

Banu Umayya was part of the larger Abd Shams clan and a long-standing rival of Muhammad's own Banu Hashim; Uthman's kinsman Mu'awiya founded the Umayyad caliphate in 661.

Which Quran chapter was being recited at his sister's home when Umar, arriving in anger, was won over to Islam?

Ta-Ha, the twentieth chapter, was being taught there by Khabbab ibn al-Aratt; Umar had set out that day as an enemy of the Muslims and became one of their fiercest defenders.

When Meccan and Medinan Muslims each claimed Salman the Persian as theirs, Muhammad said he belonged to whom?

The People of the House is the term for Muhammad's own household, so the Persian convert was being claimed as kin; the dispute had arisen during the 627 siege of Medina.