Slavery – Part Three - Some Famous Slaves of the Prophet

Slavery – Some Famous Muslim Slaves

Sr Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

(Much of this material has been gleaned from her seerah The Life of the Beloved Prophet, which will be published insha’Allah by the Islamic Research Institute of Islamabad in the near future)

The Prophet did buy slaves, and did accept some as gifts. (Please refer to my article on Slavery – the Teachings of Islam). Long before he was called to be a prophet, he and his wife Khadijah were famous for their noble conduct and generosity, purchasing the freedom of many people in bondage, and taking into their household many poor people whose loyalty and love for them resulted in their staying with them faithfully until they passed away.

He taught to those who kept slaves: ‘Your slaves are your brothers and sisters over whom God has given you control. So, he who has a brother working for him should feed him from what he eats and clothe him from what he wears.’ He once did sell a black slave he was uncomfortable with - Jacob al-Mudbir – but used the proceeds to do twice the good by buying two others and bringing them into his household.[1]

The Prophet never acted in a superior manner to slaves, but always treated them well, calling them ‘my son’ or ‘my daughter,’ and freeing as many as it was in his power to do. He counted many as personal friends – even during the period of his life when he was a wealthy and highly respected merchant of Makkah, the Prophet had sat so regularly with Jabr, a young Christian Abyssinian slave, that he was later accused of having learned his ‘new’ faith from him.

Many of the Companions the Prophet counted as his closest friends had once been slaves, but had been freed by noble Muslims – people such as Bilal, Umm Ayman, Abdullah b. Mas’ud, Khabbab, Ammar, Salman, Abu Fukayhah, Yasar, Suhayb and many, many more. Many ex-slaves held places of very high esteem in Islam.

Some of the most famous

In the category of ‘gift’ came the woman the orphaned Prophet always referred to as his ‘Mother’. Her name was Barakah or Umm Ayman. She was an Abyssinian girl bought originally by his grandfather, who was given to the Prophet’s mother as a maid when she was only 9 years old (the Prophet’s mother was herself only about 15 at the time, and died six years after the Prophet was born). Umm Ayman was the only person who knew the Prophet and cared for him from his very first breath to his very last, for she helped to deliver him as a baby, and was at his deathbed some 63 years later. She had been granted her freedom just after the Prophet married Khadijah, but after a brief marriage of c2 years, followed by divorce or bereavement, returned to his household.

Another member of their household was the youth Zayd ibn Harithah, who had been stolen from his family and sold, and at the age of 14 had ended up in Khadijah’s household. She gave him to her new husband when they married. The boy’s father eventually traced his whereabouts and came to claim him; the Prophet immediately granted his freedom to go, but the young man chose to stay with him (with his father’s consent). The Prophet had always treated him as a son, and now legally adopted him as his own son (until adoption was denied to Muslims later, in favour of fostering). Zayd went on to marry Umm Ayman, when she was 53 years old - some 20 years older than himself, and their son Usamah was regarded as the Prophet’s first ‘grandson’. Later still, Zayd married the Prophet’s own cousin, Zaynab bint Jahsh, from whom he was divorced (she went on to marry the Prophet himself). Usamah, at the age of 17, was placed in command of the Muslim army at the prophet’s deathbed.

There was a moving narrative told concerning Umm Ayman’s hijrah to Madinah. She became separated from her group, and when the Prophet realized she was not there he set out to find her; and when he saw her coming in the distance, he literally ran to embrace her. ‘Ya Umm Ayman!’ he cried in relief. ‘Ya Ummi – O my Mother!’ Her feet were gashed and swollen and her face was covered with sand and dust. She was hurried into the household, where he brushed aside any helpers and with his own hands wiped the dirt and perspiration that smeared her travel-stained face, and rubbed her aching shoulders. Then the Prophet (pbuh) knelt at her feet and began to massage them tenderly.[2]

Many poor people or slaves/servants became very famous Muslims. One notable was the Abyssinian Bilal, one of those converted by the Prophet’s friend Abu Bakr. He became the most famous of the muadhdhins, or callers to prayer, for the ethereal quality of his beautiful voice. His master Umayyah b. Khalaf, chief of the Banu Jumah, staked him out in the heat of the sun with a huge rock on his chest, saying he could stay there until he either abandoned Islam or died. Bilal had reached the limit of his endurance, and had only enough strength to mutter ‘One God, One God’ through his cracked and blistered lips, when Abu Bakr saw him, and went straight to Umayyah. ‘Have you no fear of God that you treat this poor fellow like this?’ he raged. ‘How long is this to go on?’ ‘You corrupted him, so you save him!’ snapped Umayyah. ‘I will do so,’ Abu Bakr replied, and offered him an alternative black slave, who was a devout pagan, if he would give him Bilal. Umayyah agreed.[3]

Abdullah b. Mas’ud was a very frail and thin sixteen-year-old who worked as a shepherd for the wealthy sheikh Uqbah b. Abu Mu’ayt. His mother was a slave-woman of the Banu Huzayl, and he had the derogatory nickname ‘Ibn Umm Abd’ – ‘son of the mother of a slave’. He first met the Prophet when he and Abu Bakr approached him and asked for a drink of milk from the ewes he was guarding. The two men were obviously very tired and thirsty. However, Abdullah politely refused, since the ewes were not his. The Prophet was impressed by his honesty and integrity.[4] The boy accepted Islam, and the Prophet purchased him from Uqbah, along with his mother, and brought them into his own household, where Abdullah soon became one of his most trusted and intimate helpers. Amongst his duties were waking him after his afternoon nap and making the arrangements for his baths and ablutions, thus earning another nickname – Abu Istanja, or ‘father of the washing-pot’. He went with the Prophet wherever he went. Many people even assumed he and his mother were part of the Prophet’s family since they were always there, and were so attached to him.[5]

Abdullah never grew much bigger. It was said of him that he was so short that other people sitting were as tall as him standing.[6] One day the Companions were sitting together and commented that the Quraysh had never heard any of them recite the Qur’an aloud. Who would be the first to do it? Abdullah instantly declared that he would do so, even though they protested that he would not be safe. ‘Don’t worry,’ cried Abdullah. ‘Allah will look after me!’ He went to the Ka’bah and started to recite, and when he raised his voice the Quraysh were forced to notice. ‘What on earth is this son of a slave woman saying?’ they began to murmur. When they realized it was ‘the words of Muhammad’, they began to mock and then to slap and punch him. He realized that Allah would not intervene to save him, but refused to give way until he had finished. His friends saw his bruises and bloodstains. ‘This is just what we said would happen!’ they cried. ‘These enemies of God are beneath contempt,’ replied the little slave. ‘I am quite happy to go back and do the same tomorrow!’[7] He thus earned great admiration for his courage and determination out of all proportion to his size,[8] and in due course became one of the finest and most authoritative reciters of Qur’an. On one occasion the Prophet said of this frail little man: ‘On the Day of Judgment Abdullah’s foot will be more weighty than the Mount of Uhud!’ The Prophet once gave him the highest praise, by equating his own wishes with his. ‘My desire for my people is that which Abdullah desires, and I disapprove for them that which he disapproves.’ The Prophet also said: 'Learn the recitation of Qur'an from four - from Abdullah b. Mas’ud, Salim the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah, Mu’adh b. Jabal and Ubayy b. Ka'b.’ (Bukhari 5.153).

Another celebrity convert was the freedmen Suhayb b. Sinan. Suhayb actually had an eminent background – his father Sinan b. Malik had been the governor of Ubullah (now part of Basrah in Iraq). When he was only a five-year-old child he was captured by the Byzantine (Christian) army, and sold into slavery. He passed from master to master in Byzantine lands, learning to speak Greek, and witnessing at first hand the corruption of Byzantine life. Eventually, in his twenties, he escaped to Makkah, the famous place of sanctuary, where he was looked after by and worked for Abu Bakr’s uncle Abdullah b. Juda’an, that chief of Taym who had founded the Hilf al-Fudul. They called him ar-Rumi (‘the Roman, or Byzantine’) because of his Greek accent and blond hair. He became famous as a skilled archer. He embraced Islam at the House of Arqam, and the Prophet used to call him ‘the first-fruits of Byzantium’.

Salman was the slave of a wealthy Jewish landowner, Uthman b. Ashhal of the Banu Qurayzah in the district of Wadi Qura..[9] He had been brought up a Christian, and had once been the acolyte of the Bishop of Mosul amongst other elderly bishops. One of these bishops had told him from his deathbed that an Arabian prophet was about to be made manifest, so the adventurous Salman decided to try and find this Messenger. He paid merchants to take him to Arabia, but en route was betrayed and sold as a slave to a Jewish trader, and ended up working in Uthman’s palm groves. He was with him when the Prophet made his hijrah to Madinah.

Salman knew that the expected prophet should have a special mark the Prophet on his back between his shoulders, and decided to check this for himself. He took some of the dates and went to meet him. ‘I have heard that you are a righteous man and that you have companions with you who are strangers and are in need,’ he said, offering his gift. ‘Here is something from me. I see that you are more deserving of it than others.’ The Prophet gave them to his companions to eat, but did not eat any himself. He noticed that Salman kept trying to get behind him, guessed the reason, and arranged his clothing so that Salman was able to see his raised mark. Salman then declared his conversion to Islam. However, his slave status was not altered at this time, but the Prophet sent him back to Uthman. Later, when the Prophet was about to leave Quba, Salman took some more dates specifying that they were a gift for the Prophet himself, and this time he did eat. This meticulous honesty was one of the things that led Salman to believe in him and accept Islam.

Salman was prevented by Uthman from leaving his work to join the Muslims in the battles of Badr and Uhud, but was determined to fight in the ‘battle of the Trench’. He knew the geography of the oasis well, and in particular the territory where enemy approach was easy, and offered the Prophet the advice that in Persia, whenever a cavalry attack was feared, they would surround themselves with a moat. He figured the enemy attack could only be made from the eastern and western sides of Mt. Uhud, which the Prophet could secured by digging a trench.

They had only six days in which to complete the task. One of the hypocrites, Qays b. Mutatiyah, saw Salman sitting with two freedmen, Suhayb and Bilal, and poured scorn on them. ‘The (nobles of) Aws and Khazraj have stood up to defend this man (Muhammad),’ he said. ‘What are these (low-class) people doing with him?’ Mu’adh overheard and informed the Prophet, who was very angry at his arrogance and disappointed that Qays had not accepted the equality of brotherhood of all Muslims, but still retained tribal pride and a sense of superiority in being an Arab. He ordered a call to prayer to summon the Muslims.

‘Your Lord is One, and your religion is one,’ he thundered. ‘Take heed - Arabism is not conferred upon you through your mother or father, but through the tongue. Whoever speaks Arabic is an Arab!’[10] He told his Companions that: ‘Allah, the Most High, has removed from you the pride of the time before Islam and its boasting in ancestors. You are only either a pious believer or a miserable sinner. You are sons of Adam, and Adam came from dust. So stop boasting about your ancestors. They are merely fuel for the Fire; the status of your ancestors is of less account with Allah than the beetle which rolls dung with its nose.’[11]

Meanwhile, Salman was dismayed to find out that his Jewish master would only free him if he paid 40 ounces of gold and planted 300 date palms. It seemed impossible, but when the Prophet heard of his plight he beamed with delight. Someone had recently sent him a gift of a gold nugget the size of an egg, and that was enough to cover Salman’s price. The Companions rallied round and donated the date palm shoots and dug all the holes, and the Prophet followed in their wake planting all the tiny trees with his own hands.

Some 3,000 volunteers came forward for the task of digging the massive trench and reinforcing the walls. The persuasive Salman even prevailed upon the Banu Qurayzah to lend them the mattocks, pickaxes, shovels and baskets needed for removing the earth. The Prophet planned the overall design and chalked out the proportions – it would be huge, the total length a staggering 5½ kms, and for the most part 10 yards wide and 5 yards deep. The Prophet also ordered all outlying crops to be harvested and everything brought in to safety. The whole community worked feverishly, Salman doing the work of ten. In the friendly rivalry, both Ansars and Muhajirun wished to claim the tribeless Salman for themselves, but the Prophet over-ruled them by declaring him to be one of the ‘People of his House’.

Salman was noted for his vast knowledge and wisdom. Ali once called him ‘an ocean that does not dry up’. He knew both the Christian scriptures and those of Zoroastrianism. He translated parts of the Qur’an into Persian during the Prophet’s (pbuh) lifetime – the first to translate the Qur’an into any foreign language.

I do hope that in reading these few examples, those who have accused the Prophet of buying and selling slaves and encouraging slavery will come to see his true attitude and nobility. God bless you, Sr Ruqaiyyah.

[1] Ibn Qayyim al-Jawiyya, Za’d al Ma’as part one p.160.

[2] AbdulWahid Hamid, ‘Companions of the Prophet’ , p.9; the Alim Encyclopedia, Biographies of Companions, Barakah.

[6] ‘Lata’if al-ma’arif’, Tha’alibi; Ibn Kathir 4.477.

[9] He was said to have come from Jayy, a village near Isfahan (or Ramhormuz, a district in Khuzistan; or Sabur, the ancient capital of the Shapur Khura district of Fars), and that his real name was Mabih b. Budhakhshan b. Dih Dirih.

[10] The Alim Encyclopedia, Biography of Suhayb ar-Rumi.