Praise be to Allaah, we seek His help and His forgiveness. We seek refuge with Allaah from the evil of our own souls and from our bad deeds. Whomsoever Allaah guides will never be led astray, and whomsoever Allaah leaves astray, no one can guide.I bear witness that there is no god but Allaah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.
Abu Dharr (Radiallahu anhu) along with his family settled in some place close to Macca. Abu Dharr said that, “My brother Unays went to do some business in Macca and he met a man who claims to be a prophet, he met Muhammad (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam)” so Unays came back and said “I found a man who is preaching a new religion, worshipping Allah alone” Abu Dharr said that he at that time had already worshipped Allah for three years and revoked all of the worshipping of idols, he renounced it. Subhan-Allah, you see the fitra of these people which guides them and tells them that this is wrong, this is false. Abu Dharr said, “I’ve been praying to Allah for three years” so Abu Dharr was asked “How were you praying to Allah?” he said, “I would pray to which ever direction Allah would point me to, and I would pray in whatever way Allah would guide me to, and I would pray at night until I fall asleep and only the sun would wake me up in the morning”. So he would pray, though he didn’t know how to but he would pray to Allah for three years. Abu Dharr asked his brother Unays, “What does he teach?” so Unays mentioned some of the teachings of Islam that he learned from Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and then he asked “What are the people saying about him?” Unays said that, “They are claiming that he is a sorcerer, a magician, a liar…” and he went down the list. Abu Dharr said, “maa ashfaita galeeli (You haven’t satisfied my hunger)” and then he said “I want to go and investigate the matter myself, what the people say might not necessarily be right”. The media of Macca, the CNN of the day or the ABC or whatever you call it had all of these labels that they would brand Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) with but Abu Dharr did not have trust in what the people were saying, he wanted to go and meet Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and hear it from the messenger himself. And that is what a muslim is required to do. Allah says that, “When you receive some information verify it”- tabaiyyanu, and that’s where our scholars learn the science of hadith, they would verify it. It’s not just enough to hear a hadith narrated from someone. The scholars use to say, “haatu rijaalakum au sammu lana rijaalakum”, whenever they would hear a hadith they would say “Mention the names of your men. Where did you hear this from? Tell us the names we want to know who you got this information from. We just don’t follow any hearsay.” Abu Dharr said “I went into Macca and I asked the first man that I saw in front of me and asked him ‘Can you guide me towards Muhammad (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam)?’ That man immediately started calling the men of Quraysh and they started pelting me with stones, rocks whatever they could get their hands on until I fell unconscious. By the time I woke up, I was like ‘Nusub Ahmar’ (the people of Quraysh use to have these idols which they would slaughter and sacrifice their animals over. So they would be soaked with blood)” that is the description Abu Dharr gave of himself- like a red pole, soaked with blood from head to toe. He said, “So I went to the well of Zamzam, I drank water and I washed the blood off my body. Then I went next to Al-Kaaba” in the narration of Imam Ahmed it says that he stayed there for 30 days not knowing where to meet Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and Abu Dharr said “I did not have any food for the entire period except for drinking the water of Zamzam.” Now, I think physicians can tell us that a person can survive by drinking water for quite a while so may be that’s not such a surprise but the surprising thing is what comes next. Abu Dharr said “and I started picking up weight until I was getting folds on my stomach”. You know the Bedouins, they would have flat tummies. They were very fit. Abu Dharr said “I was gaining weight and the flesh of my stomach was folding”. You know when you sit down and the flesh of the stomach folds.
Abu Dharr states that he then saw two women making tawaf and they would touch Isaf an- Naeela on every turn. What’s the story of Isaf an-Naeela? Isaf an-Naeela were a man and a women who were in love and they couldn’t get married and they had an appointment or a date to meet next to al-Kaaba and they intended to fornicate next to the house of Allah ‘Aoozubillah. Allah (Subhahana wa ‘Ta’ala) turned them in to stones on the spot. After the passage of some time the mushrikeen of Quraysh started worshipping these two stones- Isaf an-Naeela .To show you how when you open the flood gate for shaitan you can’t close it, he just throws you in dungeons of darkness and can never get out of it. You just get in and never come out. Darkness over darkness, one veil over another. Now, the story of idol worshipping actually started as erecting statues after righteous men die. Shaitan came to the people of Nuh (‘Alaihiassalam) then told them after the righteous man have passed away, “Why don’t you erect statues of these righteous men so that they would remind you about Allah?” so they did that. Then after a few generations he started telling them “Worship them” and that’s how the idol worshipping grew. So here you have Isaf an-Naeela being worshipped and these two women would make tawaf and they would touch Isaf an-Naeela on every turn. Now Abu Dharr, he despised idol worshipping, so he threw out a comment. He said, “Why don’t you make one of them have intercourse with the other?” Either the women did not understand what he said or they didn’t believe what they heard, they continued. When Abu Dharr saw that his words did not deter them, he threw out an even more vulgar comment. Now the women were sure of what they heard. They immediately just started running and screaming, wailing down the streets of Macca. And who did they run in to? - Muhammad (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and Abu Bakr (Radiallahu anhu). Muhammad (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and Abu Bakr were seeing these two women running in the street screaming, he asked, “What’s wrong with you?” they said, “That heretic over there!” Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) asked “What’s the issue with him?” they said, “He spoke a word that fills the mouth!”- “Fa imla ul faan” in other words something that is unspeakable. Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and Abu Bakr went to meet this man- Abu Dharr (Radiallahu anhu) and they started the conversation. Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) asked Abu Dharr, “Where are you from?”- “Min ayna ar- rajar?” he said “Ana min Gheefar (I am from Gheefar)”. After hearing this Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) placed his hand on his forehead. Abu Dharr said, “Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) was surprised and amazed to see somebody from Gheefar coming to Macca in search of the truth”. From Gheefar, these people who rob caravans, the ones who do not follow any rules or any customs; and he is searching for the truth in Macca and the people of Macca, the ones who are considered to be the religious authority of Arabia are rejecting Rasulullah’s (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) message. Abu Dharr said “Fakariha an intasabtu ila Gheefar (I felt he might have disliked that I have mentioned that I am from Gheefar) so I extended my hand to pull his hand from his forehead. But Abu Bakr slammed my hand and told me to put my hand down”. And then the conversation continued and Abu Dharr ended up embracing Islam. Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) told Abu Dharr, “Uktum Iman (Keep your iman secret)”. Abu Dharr, he went out the next day, rather than keeping his iman secret he went in front of the people of Quraysh and said “Ashhadu al laa ilaha Illa Allah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadur Rasulullah!”. He didn’t care about the consequence. He said, “They gathered around me and they beat me up so bad that I was going to die” until ‘Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib came in and he said, “Do you know where this man is from? He is from Gheefar!” Abu Dharr said “Immediately they just ran away”. They were fleeing, running away from him. But he did the same thing the next day and he did the same thing on the third day and everyday the same thing would happen, they would come and beat him up until Al ‘Abbas comes and tells this new group of people who are hitting him that this man is from Gheefar. Al ‘Abbas said, “And you know, if this man gets killed by you, none of your trade will make it safely to Syria. They are going to take revenge of you”. Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) then told Abu Dharr “Go back to your people and convey the message to them and when you hear that I prevailed, come back to me”.
How long did Abu Dharr stay with Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam)? - For quite a short time. How much did he learn from him? – Probably not a lot. A few verses, a few hadith here and there and that was it. Abu Dharr went back to his people in Gheefar and he started giving them da’wah. Slowly and slowly people were accepting Islam among the people of Gheefar. He said, “By the time Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) made hijrah, almost half of my tribe was Muslim. Then we decided to go and visit Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and the rest of the tribe have said, ‘When Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) arrives and when we go and meet him, we will become Muslim’” So now the whole tribe is Muslim. All of them are Muslim. The other half just said that, “We are going to wait, it is a matter of time and then we will become Muslim” and they did. So when Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) was in Medinah they saw in the horizon this dust cloud, sign of an army approaching, large group of people. So some of the sahaba rushed to their weapons thinking that an army is approaching towards them. But Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) said “Qun Aba Dharr (Be Abu Dharr) and the prophecy of Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) was true. It was Abu Dharr and all of his tribe of Gheefar coming to pledge their allegiance to Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam), the entire tribe. Now there was rivalry between two tribes, Gheefar and Aslam. When Aslam heard that Gheefar became Muslim and they went and pledged their allegiance to Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam), they immediately went to Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and said that “We also want to become Msulim”, two tribes. Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) said, “Gheefar, Ghafara Allahu laha wa Aslam SalamahuAllah (Gheefar! May Allah forgive them and Aslam! May Allah give them peace)”. All of it started by the work of one man and how much did this man know? Was he a scholar at that time? No, he just knew a few ayat. Later on Abu Dharr came to know a lot. But at that stage, he just spent a few days with Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) and that was it. All of Gheefar became Muslim. The last people in the desert that you would expect to accept Islam, they did become Muslim Subhan-Allah.
Now, what can we learn from the story of Abu Dharr? First, “Wa Alladheena ahtada wa zada humuAllah hada” (The ones who search fro guidance, Allah will give it to them). Abu Dharr investigated the matter and Allah showed him the light, showed him the truth. Second, Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) said “Balighu anni wa Al-ayah” (Convey even one verse from me). Whatever you have convey it, share it, teach it. Don’t keep it to yourself. Third, that is courage. Abu Dharr is an example of a person who has courage; he wasn’t intimidated by the fact that he was a foreigner in Macca. He stood and he said, “I am a Muslim” and he was proud and he paid for it dearly. Then he went to his people and he preached the message to them. So this shows you the courage and the personality of Abu Dharr which is shown again and again by the sahaba of Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) which was the one of the qualities that they had and this is one of the reasons why Allah (Subhahana wa ‘Ta’ala) chose them to be the bearers of the message. They had simplicity, they had courage, they had honesty and they had commitment to a cause. When they believed in something they would commit their lives to it. Fourth, verifying the truth. Just because the people said that he is a sorcerer, a liar, a magician etc doesn’t mean anything. You have to go to the source and verify the information yourself. Allah has given you a mind, Allah has given you intelligence- use it. Don’t just follow what the people are saying. Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) said that “Don’t be an Imma’” and when he was asked what is the meaning of Imma’, he said, “Whenever the people say ‘Yes’ you say ‘Yes’ and whenever they say ‘No’ you say ‘No’”. Don’t just follow. Fifth, “La tahtiranna min al ma’rufi shai an wa la antalka hakabi wajab hasan al falq” Rasulullah (Sallallahu ‘alaihiwassalam) says in this hadith “Do not belittle any good deed even it is as small as smiling in the face of your brother”. Don’t belittle anything. Whatever good there is don’t consider it to be insignificant because everything good is significant and may be that small thing will make a difference on the Day of Judgment for you and it will be the criterion between Hell fire and Paradise. May be one small deed that you would do which you don’t pay any attention to will take the scale to your side for your favor. And how do we derive this lesson from the story of Abu Dharr? Abu Dharr (Radiallahu anhu), he learned very little and all what he wanted was to propagate the message and may be he never expected that this small effort of his would end up causing the whole tribe of Gheefar and the whole tribe of Aslam to become Muslim. May be he only thought that he could convince a few group of people, may be a few of his relatives but for this work to end up bearing the fruits of two major tribes becoming Muslim couldn’t have crossed Abu Dharr’s mind. But you throw the seed and Allah (Subhahana wa ‘Ta’ala) will make it grow. There is a hadith by the way that says that – A person might speak a word that might please Allah and they don’t pay attention to it but Allah (Subhahana wa ‘Ta’ala) will raise them up levels because of that and a person might speak a word that will anger Allah and because of that they will be thrown in Hell fire. It’s a matter of a word here or there.
From the transcription of Imam Anwar Awlaki's lecture (The life of Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu 'alaihiwassalam- the Maccan period)
.jpg)
