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The Firsts (Sahaba Stories) | The Forerunners of Islam
Qatada ibn al-Nu’man (ra): The Shield of the Prophet ﷺ | The Firsts
At Uhud, when the ranks around the Prophet ﷺ collapsed, Qatada ibn al-Nu‘man (ra) stood in front of him and turned his face toward every arrow. The last one took his eye. With it hanging on his cheek, his first fear was whether his wife could still look at him. What did the Prophet ﷺ do next?
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
00:00Now, all of these stories I wanted to use as a build-up for really the longest one and
00:12the most profound one and the most beautiful one in this regard. The one where we have the most details. And he's the last Badri that we're going to see. So we saw Sawad, we saw Rifaa, Sawad wants that last touch with the Prophet ﷺ, Rifaa's
00:27eye was cured by the saliva of the Prophet ﷺ. This Sahabi, Qatada ibn Nu'man, Al-Ameer Al-Mujahid, Qatada ibn Nu'man.
00:37If you're looking for a name for your child, one of the most incredible stories of the
00:43Sahabi of the Prophet ﷺ, Al-Imam Al-Dhahabi mentions him, Qatada ibn Nu'man, Al-Ameer Al-Mujahid. He calls him the leader, the warrior, Al-Ameer Al-Mujahid.
00:58And he mentions that Al-Zafri, so he's from Banu Zafr, Al-Badri, he's from the people of Badr, Min Nujaba' Al-Sahaba, from the most noble of the companions.
01:11This is Al-Dhahabi who writes the stories about all the companions. He says, from the most noble of the companions, Wa Akhu Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri li Ummihi.
01:22And he's the brother of Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, through his mother. He has the same mother as Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri radiyallahu ta'ala anhu. This man's story is remarkable.
01:36So basically, first and foremost, his relationship to Abu Sa'id, who's obviously one of the most famous companions of the Prophet ﷺ. Their mother was Unaisa bint Qais, Unaisa bint Qais from Banu Najjar.
01:50And basically, after the death of An-Nu'man, being the father of Qatada, she married Sinan, who's the father of Abu Sa'id.
02:02So again, this would make Qatada older than Abu Sa'id, right? So Qatada's father, An-Nu'man, was married to Unaisa bint Qais.
02:13When An-Nu'man died, Unaisa bint Qais married Sinan ibn Ubaid Al-Khudri, and of course that's where the noble companion Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri comes from.
02:23So Akhu li Ummihi, he is his brother, through his mother, may Allah ﷻ be pleased with them. He was perhaps the earliest of the Ansar to witness Bay'atu l-Aqaba al-Thaniya, the second of Bay'atu l-Aqaba.
02:38And we mentioned, Rifaa brought Surah Yusuf to Madinah. As for Qatada ibn Nu'man, he was the first one to recite Surah Maryam in Madinah.
02:51So subhanAllah, you actually start to see how these companions get assigned like these moments where like they gave us something so beautiful, so special. Surah Maryam, which was the introduction to Islam in Abyssinia, to a Christian king,
03:05and now you have Qatada reciting in Madinah, the first time they hear Surah Maryam, and of course that's very consequential to the Jewish tribes in Madinah, as well as the others
03:17because of the clarity of Tawheed in that Surah. And obviously the beauty of Surah Maryam, it's so unparalleled, subhanAllah, it's beauty and it's eloquence and it's power as is the entirety of the Qur'an.
03:31So he's the first one to recite Surah Maryam in Madinah. Now he was from the most famous of the Rumat, from the archers of the Prophet ﷺ, and he
03:43used to be one of those who would stand directly in front of the Prophet ﷺ with his bow and arrow, with his archery. So again, there are positions in battle, right?
03:54You have the archers that occupy ranks, and then you have the archers that are situated in the battlefield itself. And those take different skill sets. Think about like a long-range, like you almost have to have like the eye of a sniper, right?
04:08I know I'm in Texas, I get dunked on enough by these Islamophobes, so let me not use my hands here, alright? Because I know what's going to happen. They have AI anyway, right? But short-range versus long-range.
04:22So he's someone who specifically knows how to fight with short-range archery. It's really interesting when you get into the details of this with him, radiyallahu ta'ala anhu.
04:33Now he fought every battle alongside the Prophet ﷺ as well, from Badr, to Uhud, to Khandaq, to Khaybar, until Fath Makkah, until the conquest of Makkah.
04:43And he has a story with the Prophet ﷺ specifically now in Uhud. So he fought alongside the Prophet ﷺ in Badr, but in Uhud, because he was with the
04:56Prophet ﷺ in the most intense moments, he was one of those who did not flee. And Imam al-Bayhaqi, rahimahullah, he says that the Prophet ﷺ shot from his bow on
05:10the day of Uhud until his bow broke. What does that mean? Specifically in the midst of the battle when it got heated and things were collapsing around
05:21the Prophet ﷺ, at some point in Uhud, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ picked up a bow and arrow and started shooting with his bow and arrow as well ﷺ. So the Prophet ﷺ was engaging, obviously in Uhud when it was collapsing, you're picking
05:36up whatever you can. So at some point, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ started to shoot arrows ﷺ. And Qatada ibn Nu'man was with the Prophet ﷺ and this particular qaws, this particular
05:52bow of the Prophet ﷺ, so the Prophet ﷺ had this bow and he started to shoot these arrows ﷺ ferociously in the battle. Al-Qadi, rahimahullah, says it was called al-Katum, it was a very particular bow and
06:07arrow of the Prophet ﷺ called al-Katum. And it was because it was a very smooth bow and arrow, it didn't used to make noise. You know when you're shooting archery, if it's a particular type, it will make certain noises. So it didn't used to have a loud noise when it was shot.
06:22So this was for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. And when it broke in the battle of Uhud, Qatada, rahimahullah, says, I picked it up.
06:33And basically, that bow stayed with Qatada, rahimahullah, for the rest of his life and it was preserved in his tribe of Banu Zafar.
06:47After Qatada, rahimahullah, as sort of a physical relic and something that was maintained from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. So Banu Zafar preserved it until the time that these books are being written, so I mean centuries, right?
07:01That this remains preserved amongst Banu Zafar, that this was the bow and arrow of the Prophet ﷺ because Qatada ibn Nu'man picked it up on that day when it broke from the hand of the Prophet ﷺ.
07:13And so he says that as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was shooting and I was shooting in front of the Prophet ﷺ, qala lam azal ala maqami nusba wajhi rasoolillahi ﷺ, alqas sihaama
07:27bi wajhi, subhanAllah. He said that on that day, I never left my post in front of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. And you know, there are the narrations of the companions that grabbed the Prophet ﷺ,
07:41like Yazid ibn Sakan, Abu Dujanah, right, the arrows hit them in the back. Qatada says, I was trying to catch the arrows with my face, subhanAllah.
07:53Like that's how dedicated he was to holding the post. Not only did I not flee, I was moving my head so as the arrows were coming to the Prophet
08:03ﷺ, I was hoping that it would hit me before it hits the Prophet ﷺ. So he said that every time an arrow slanted towards the face of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, I tilted my head to shield the face of the Prophet ﷺ.
08:18kullama ma la sahmun minha ila wajhi rasoolillahi ﷺ mayyaltu raasi, every time it came towards the Prophet ﷺ, I moved my head in front of that arrow.
08:30And he says, fakana aakhiruha sahman nadrat minhu hadaqati. He said, until the final arrow came, and this gets gruesome, but do pay attention to what's
08:44being said here. He said, the final arrow came and it struck my eye and my eye fell out from its socket.
08:54So my eye was hanging on my cheek. This is one of the most detailed narrations of the miracles of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
09:05So basically as his eye was hanging out of his sockets, some of the sahaba aradu an They wanted to remove it basically, at that point. Fasa'alu rasoolillahi ﷺ.
09:19So they went and they asked the Prophet ﷺ. And subhanAllah, here's a very human moment. Qala ya rasoolallah, inna indi imraatan uhibbuha, wa inhi raat ayni khashitu an taqdarani.
09:34O Messenger of Allah ﷺ, I have a woman that I love, speaking about his wife, or someone that he intends to marry, as the commentators say.
09:44And I'm afraid if she sees my eye in this state, then she'll be disgusted by me, she'll be repulsed by me. SubhanAllah, this man who was willing to take all the arrows to his face, in front of the
09:56Messenger of Allah ﷺ, it gets gruesome, but it also is very graphic. The Prophet ﷺ, he said, the Prophet ﷺ took my eyeball and he put it back into my head.
10:11And he held his hand ﷺ over my eye. And he said, Allahumma inna qatada, qad waqa nabiyyaka ﷺ bi wajhihi, faj'alha ahsana
10:24aynayhi wa ahaddahuma nazarah. O Allah, Qatada protected the Prophet ﷺ with his face.
10:34So make this eye of his, the more beautiful of his two eyes, and the sharper of it in vision. And SubhanAllah, he said, as soon as the Prophet ﷺ removed his hand from my eye, it was as
10:48if nothing happened to me. This is one of the miracles of Uhud, to the point that they said about him, kana la yudra
10:59ayyu aynayhi usibat. No one could tell which of his eyes was struck. Like there wasn't even a mark from when the Prophet ﷺ put his eye back in his head and made dua for him.
11:12No one could tell which of the two eyes was struck. And later on, he says that when I got older and I started to lose vision in the other
11:24eye, that eye was the sharpest of vision, and it was the more beautiful of the two eyes. So like that eye was perfected, and the other eye sometimes, as you get older obviously, it became harder to see out of that eye, radiyallahu ta'ala anhum.
11:37SubhanAllah, just think of the way that this just played out. The man stood in front of the Prophet ﷺ, broken arrow and everything, used his face until his eye was struck and fell out.
11:50And the Prophet ﷺ restored his eyesight, but there's something else that the ulama mention, it's very poetic if you think about it. The Prophet ﷺ did not just restore the way that he could see, he restored the way that his eye would be seen, so it was the more beautiful
12:03of the two eyes. From that one moment of the hand of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
12:10Qatada radiAllahu ta'ala anhu has so much more in his story. For one, there's an ayah in Surah Nisa that
12:19came down because of his family. And this is one of those ayahs that shows the justice of Islam. Qatada had an uncle, I'm almost hesitant to mention his name because I don't
12:32want people to start mixing it up, but his name is also Rifaa, Rifaa ibn Zayd. But he's not the same Rifaa. Qatada's uncle purchased a large amount of belongings from one of the
12:45caravans that was coming back from a trade route. And he stored all of that in his house. So he had weapons, he had armor, he had flour, he had everything that he just got from this
12:55caravan. And there were some people from Banu Ubayriq that saw him loading up his house.
13:04So Qatada's talking about his uncle. So these three men that saw the uncle of Qatada store the stuff in his house, they basically plotted at night to go and steal everything from it.
13:17But then what did they do? They left the tracks of some of his belongings to lead to the house
13:26of a Jewish man in Medina. Pretty dirty. Because the idea was, he's a Jewish man, they're going to go tell the Prophet ﷺ that things are stolen. The assumption, I mean, the tracks
13:39are there so they didn't just steal the goods from him. These are from the munafiqeen, by the way, the hypocrites. But the assumption is the Jewish man is going to get punished.
13:47Right? Allah ﷻ revealed the Qur'an for justice in defense of the Jewish man who was wrongfully
13:59accused. And it's verse 105 in Surah An-Nisa,
14:03Where Allah ﷻ says, indeed, We have revealed to you the Book in truth so that you may judge
14:19between the people by that which Allah ﷻ has shown you and do not plead, do not find yourself as an advocate for the deceitful ones. And so they investigated and they traced
14:31the weapons back to that particular group of brothers. And the weapons were returned and the armor and everything was returned to Rifaa'ah, the uncle of Qatada. And he
14:44says, فَلَمَّا نَزَلَ الْقُرْآنُ أَتَى رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ بِالسِّلَاحِ فَرَدَّهُ إِلَىٰ رِفَاعَةَ When the Qur'an came down in that regard, Prophet ﷺ personally brought back his stuff to his uncle and gave it back to him. فَقَالَ
14:57عَمِّي يَا ابْنَ أَخِي هُوَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ He said that my uncle said, O son of my brother, it is all for the sake of Allah ﷻ.
15:07قَالَ فَعَرَفْتُ أَنَّ إِسْلَامَهُ كَانَ صَحِيحًا So Qatada is saying, I knew that my uncle's Islam was sincere. Because he was so beautiful and graceful about it and he gave all of that for the sake of
15:19Allah ﷻ anyway. Like imagine, those people that made this whole plot and stole from him, but he doesn't even want it anymore. He says, use it all for the sake of Allah ﷻ.
15:30So this is the type of family and household that we're talking about with Al-Ameer Al-Mujahid, Qatada ibn Nu'man radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. But there's another narration in Muslim and Imam Ahmad with another miracle with him.
15:43And it also includes that physical touch and the miracle and the barakah of the Prophet ﷺ. That the Prophet ﷺ one day went out for Salatul Isha and it was a very stormy night.
15:57So it was an intense night. And he was expecting not many people to come to the masjid.
16:05So the Prophet ﷺ went out on this dark and rainy night and he saw only a few people in the masjid.
16:12And the Prophet ﷺ said that I was expecting only a few people. Now back then even just on a normal night, it's dark. People go to Isha leave and no one knows who came, right? Because they
16:26come and they go in Fajr and Isha. So the Prophet ﷺ says, Qatada. Qatada says,
16:34Ya Rasulullah, what is it O Messenger of Allah? So the Prophet ﷺ said, come close to me.
16:44Come close to me. So Qatada came to the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ handed him a stick.
17:04Take this stick. It will light in front of you 10 spans of light and it will light behind you 10 spans of light. And the Prophet ﷺ said, and when you enter your home,
17:20you're going to notice a dark shape in the corner of your home. The Prophet ﷺ says,
17:27strike that shape because that's a devil. So the Prophet ﷺ handed Qatada a stick.
17:36The stick lit up. Qatada said, I went home and I saw exactly that shape that the Prophet ﷺ was talking about in the corner of my home. I struck it and it fled. So this is one of the
17:50second miracles of Qatada ibn Nu'man. And one narration about him, subhanAllah, the sincerity of Qatada is a hadith from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri where he says,
18:07a man heard a man reading. And the commentaries of hadith say he's talking about his brother. Abu Sa'id is talking about his brother Qatada most likely in this narration.
18:16So he heard a man reciting throughout the entire night, reading it over and over and over again.
18:32So when he woke up at night, he came to the Prophet ﷺ and he told the Prophet ﷺ what he did. And the Prophet ﷺ said,
18:40By him in whose hands is my soul, verily Qul Huwa Allahu Ahad is equal to one third of the Qur'an.
18:53So he's one of those people, like the other man who would read Qul Huwa Allahu Ahad in every salah with another surah by the way, because I know a lot of people maybe want to use that to just read Qul Huwa Allahu Ahad, not because you love it, because it's short. No, another man from the companions would read Qul Huwa Allahu Ahad with another surah
19:08in every rak'ah because of how much he loves it. Qatada radiAllahu ta'ala anhu read this surah over and over and over again throughout the night, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. And the Prophet ﷺ said it is like one third of the Qur'an.
19:21Qatada ibn Nu'man radiAllahu ta'ala anhu whose eye was restored, who had a sharp vision from the dua of the Prophet ﷺ and who used to stand in front of the Prophet ﷺ
19:33in the most consequential battles. He was from the muqaddama of Sayyiduna Umar radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. What is the muqaddama? The muqaddama is like the vanguard. It's those closest,
19:45like think of the bodyguards, the closest soldiers when he would travel. And so Qatada ibn Nu'man radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was the vanguard of Umar radiAllahu ta'ala anhu
19:57when he traveled to Ash-Sham. And of course we know that when Umar radiAllahu ta'ala anhu traveled to Ash-Sham, it was also for the liberation of Al-Quds. May Allah ﷻ liberate it once again,
20:08Allahumma ameen. So that's who the man you would have been seeing in front of Umar ibn Khattab radiAllahu anhu would have been when he entered into Ash-Sham. May Allah ﷻ bless all of it,
20:18Allahumma ameen. He lived radiAllahu ta'ala anhu in Al-Madinah throughout the khilaf of Umar radiAllahu anhu, being someone very close to Sayyiduna Umar radiAllahu anhu. And he died in the last year
20:30of his khilafah. And Umar ibn Khattab radiAllahu ta'ala anhu personally led his Salatul Janazah and went into his grave to receive his body. And subhanAllah, they say like what an amazing group
20:43of people that enter the grave to receive his body. Those that went into the grave to receive his body, Umar ibn Khattab, Muhammad ibn Maslamah, and his brother Abu Sa'id al-Khudri. May Allah be
20:53pleased with them all, were the three men that were narrated to enter into the grave and to receive the body of this blessed man, Qatada ibn Nu'man radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. His son, Umar,
21:06Umar ibn Qatada, became one of the esteemed narrators of the tabi'een. And then his grandson, Asim ibn Umar, you know Umar ibn Khattab had an Asim too. So he had an Asim ibn Umar too. So it
21:19shows you the way that the sahaba were repeating the naming schemes. Asim ibn Umar is actually considered one of the most consequential reporters of seerah. And he's one of the teachers of Ibn Ishaq,
21:31who narrated the most famous seerah of the Prophet ﷺ. And I just want to end with a poem that took place where Qatada's grandson enters upon Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, the grandson of Umar
21:45ibn Khattab. SubhanAllah, Qatada ibn Nu'man's grandson with Umar ibn Khattab's grandson. May Allah be pleased with them all. And Umar ibn Abdul Aziz doesn't know who he is. So Umar
21:57ibn Abdul Aziz asks him to introduce himself. So here's what he says.
22:02Qala ana ibnul ladhi saalat alal khaddi aynuhu, fa ruddat bikaffi al-mustafa ﷺ ahsana alraddi.
22:13Fa aadat kama kaanat li awwali amriha, fa yaa husna maa aynun, wa yaa husna maa khaddu.
22:21He said, I am the son of the one whose eye fell onto his cheek. And then it was returned by the
22:29hand of al-mustafa ﷺ to the most beautiful restoration. And it returned to what it was in the first place. So how beautiful the eye and how beautiful the cheek that was touched by
22:43the messenger ﷺ and restored by the hand of the messenger ﷺ. That's how he introduced himself.
22:50And Umar ibn Abdul Aziz immediately knew who he was. He said, so you're the son of Qatada ibn al-Nu'man?
22:58He said, yes. And he responded and he said, tilkal makarimu, that these are the noble feats.
23:06La qa'bani min labanin, sheeba bima'in fa aada ba'dal abwala. He said that these are the noble
23:14people who are not like two bowls of milk that are mixed with water only to become urine afterwards. What he's talking about is they remain in their purity, they remain in their beauty, they
23:24remain in the way that Allah ﷻ blessed them and made them who they were. And he sent salawat on the Prophet ﷺ. And because he realized that he was in front of the grandson of Qatada ibn al-Nu'man,
23:37he called him forward and he gave him some gifts as well and welcomed him and embraced him in that home of the Amir.











































































































































































































