The Firsts (Sahaba Stories) | The Forerunners of Islam
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khawla Bint Hakim & Uthman Ibn Madhun: The Righteous Couple | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Al-Shifa bint Abdullah (ra): The Healer and Scholar | The Firsts Shorts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Shurahbil Ibn Hasana (ra): The Scribe and Commander | The Firsts Shorts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khalid ibn al-Walid (ra): The Legendary Military General | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Amr ibn al-As (ra): His Wicked Father and “Better” Brother | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid (ra): From False Prophet to Shaheed | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Zayd ibn al-Khattab (ra): The Quiet Brother of Omar (ra) | The Firsts
Salman Al Farsi (ra): The Truth Seeker | The Firsts
Dr. Omar Suleiman talks about the journey of truth that took the son of a Zoroastrian chief from Persia, through the churches of Syria and Iraq, to eventually becoming one of the most beloved companions of the Prophet ﷺ in Madinah.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Wa ala adwana illa ala al-dhalimeen. Wa ala aqiba tul al-muttaqeen. Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barak al abdika wa rasulika Muhammadin salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasneemin kathira. So tonight dear brothers and sisters, we go into the story of a sahabi who, subhanallah, it's very hard to condense the story because there's so much history that comes through this one companion of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And the way I want to set the stage for you is like Abdullah ibn Abbas radiallahu ta'ala anhuma, when he describes coming across this man, Salman al-Farisi radiallahu ta'ala anhum. Ibn Abbas radiallahu ta'ala anhuma, of course, was a young man, and we will one day unpack his biography in full inshallah ta'ala soon. He was a young man when he finally got to be with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Between the age of 10 and 13. So you have to kind of see the world through his eyes. He comes into Medina and he's seeing this new reality that he's only heard about in Mecca, about his cousin, Rasulallah salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he wants to soak it all up. And there is a very peculiar person that walks around Medina with such stature, with such haybah, you know, people are in such awe of him. He goes inside the house of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam frequently. When people see him, there's a clear distinction that this man has, and he's a Persian. And the Persians and the Arabs had a cultural dislike for each other. And so Abdullah ibn Abbas radiallahu ta'ala anhuma is very curious about Salman radiallahu ta'ala anhu, who is this man and what is his story. And subhanallah, we have in the book of the virtues of the Ansar, Fadhal al-Ansar, in Sahih al-Bukhari,
the hadith that is narrated from Abdullah ibn Abbas radiallahu ta'ala anhuma, the story of the Islam of Salman al-Farisi. Imagine this 13 year old sitting with a 63 year old, because he was the same age as the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and saying, how did you end up here? And who are you? And what is your story? And Salman radiallahu ta'ala anhu gives him this long story of how he ends up in the presence of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, in Al-Madinah, with such distinction and with such greatness. So imagine yourself in Al-Madinah, a young man sitting with his elder and saying, tell me your story. And he starts to unload this entire history of the Roman and the Persian Empire, of versions of Christianity that they did not even know exists, and of the multiple languages that he knew, and the multiple hurdles that he had to jump through, to get to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam in Al-Madinah. So let's start just briefly, and of course I've taught a much, much, much longer course on Salman al-Farisi radiallahu anhu, so I'm going to condense it into two parts inshallah, this week and next week. Just briefly, what is the history of the Persian and the Roman Empire as it relates to the story of Salman al-Farisi radiallahu ta'ala anhu? Number one, the Persian Empire followed what religion? What was the religion of the Persian Empire? A religion called Zoroastrianism, Al-Majus when you read it within our books. And they are marked by the adoration and worship surrounding fire. And subhanallah, when you look at the Romans and their attachment to Christianity at the time, a very particular type of Christianity, back then when you say the Majus, or you say the Persians, or you say the Christians, or you say the Romans, those things are interchangeable, because religion is heavily associated with those two empires.
If you are a Roman, the assumption is you belong to the Christian Empire. If you are a Persian, or if you are a Zoroastrian, you belong to the Persian Empire. These two empires had the longest war in history, over 700 years. That only ended in the time of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and was predicted in its collapse in Surah Rum. You imagine, 720 plus years. To give you some perspective, that times two is the time between us and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Imagine two empires fighting for that long, with no pause between them. And it's going to end in the time of al-Islam, in the time of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, with both empires being defeated by the Muslims. So it's an interesting world. Religion and politics are very much so intertwined. And this is the state religion, if you will, of the Persian Empire, Zoroastrianism, and the state religion of the Roman Empire being a very particular type of Christianity, that was formalized under Constantine. And these two empires are at war, and everybody else is an observer. Everyone else is an observer, with their loyalties to one of the two empires. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is growing up in the home of the high priest of his religion. He's growing up in the home of the high priest of his religion. To give you some context of how important this role was, if you look up the currencies of the Persian Empire at the time, you'll find that some of the coins did not have the picture of Kisra, of the ruler of the Persian Empire, but instead of the priest around the fire. So people used to come around this fire, they used to worship, and Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is going to grow up in the home of the high priest and the leader of his people around this fire,
and somehow find himself in Medina next to the Prophet ﷺ. So you talk about an unlikely journey, this is the most unlikely journey from all of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ that we have covered. Now it's also important to understand that the Christianity that existed in Persia at the time, because there was a Christianity in Persia at the time, was a smaller form of Christianity, but definitely one that was closer, closer to the way of Isa, to the way of Jesus, peace be upon him. It was a more orthodox, less politicized form of Christianity, a small pocket of Christian worshippers, and in fact if you look up in Persia, the Assyrian church of Mariam, of Saint Mary, is considered by some historians to be the second church in the history of Christianity after Bethlehem. You read about the Persian followers of Christ, the early Persian followers of Christianity. So they maintain their presence, but they don't have any political power, but they're also not subjected to the formalized Christianity of the Western church under the Roman Empire. And so without getting too deep into history, the Council of Nicaea, which takes place in the year 325 after Isa, peace be upon him, the Council of Nicaea is where the Nicene Creed, the Roman church, formalizes the Trinity and formalizes many new dictates in Christianity and essentially outlaws all other forms of Christianity. So the debates over Isa, peace be upon him, and who he was, and whether it's three in one or one, or whether it is father and son, or whether Jesus is fully human or both fully human and fully God, all of these debates are supposed to end. And many practices are instituted in the Council of Nicaea that are supposed to become mainstream
and the only acceptable version and understanding of Isa, peace be upon him, of Christianity at that point. The Persian Christians, maintaining their small worship outside of the rule of the Roman Empire, they worship in peace, they worship quietly, and they maintain many of the early forms of aqeedah, the early creed of Christianity at the time, and many of the early forms of worship that you would not find except underground and hidden in the Roman Empire. So we go to the story of Salman, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, and how he enters into this particular type of agreement and arrangement that sees him to where he is. The name of Salman, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, according to most of the books, was Ruzbe, the son of Marzban. Ruzbe, the son of Marzban. Now there is a debate over whether his name was Salman before or after Islam. And some of the scholars, they say it was Salman, which denotes being easygoing and obedient, because he submitted himself to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Some of them say this actually is a description of the type of child that he was with his father. His father was the leader of his people in Asbahan, in modern day Iran, in Persia, and he is the high priest. The fire is literally in his home. So he lives in a palace, the fire is in his home, and Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is growing up blinded to the world around him, literally does not leave home, taking care of this fire and being raised to essentially be the successor of his father. Now the premise of Zoroastrianism is that the fire can never go out. So this has to go on and on and on and on, and they didn't have fire alarms at the time. So it's in his house all the time, 24-7, you have to watch the fire and cater to it. And Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is growing up around this fire, Ruzbai, the son of Marzban.
Now he says that my father was not just the leader of our people and the chief of our people, but my father loved me deeply. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was loved by his father, and he said he loved me so much, حَبَسَنِي كَالْجَارِيَةِ that he held me like a slave girl in the home. Never lets me go. I was like one who was enslaved. I could never leave my house, and you talk about another level of sheltering. My father kept me right there next to the fire throughout, and I was provided for. We had servants in the house, we had everything that we possibly needed, and I went with it. And Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, I became learned in the way of Zoroastrianism. He learned the philosophies of it, he learned the practices of it, he learned the scriptures of it at the time. He was one of the world's oldest religions. He learned everything that there was to learn about Zoroastrianism, and so he became respectable as a teenager in that faith. So he's growing up to be a Zoroastrian priest, and the home was called Dari Mehr, which is the name of the place in which the fire is kept. So he says that my father was very wealthy, he was very affectionate, he had everything on me, I never had any reason to leave my home. We had multiple properties that were owned by him, he had gardens that he had servants to tend to, he had palaces and properties that he had servants to tend to. And then one day, one day, he said, my father got too busy with his properties, and he needed an extra hand. And so he comes to me, and at this point he trusts me, because I've never left the house, I've never done anything wrong, and I'm growing up in this religion as a priest in this religion. He comes to me one day, and he says to me, oh my son, I'm too busy with the building today,
and I need help with the garden, so I need you to go take care of this garden. So Salman r.a. said, so he finally allowed me to leave the house, and it's not like Salman r.a. disobeyed his father, he said, I got lost. So I left the house, and I got lost, which shows you how sheltered he was. He didn't even know how to get to the garden of his father. So SubhanAllah, while he got lost, what does he come across? He says, I came across a church. And he said, I was intrigued, because I could hear the voices of their qira'ah, of their recitation. They were reciting their scripture from inside the church. So I was compelled. The only thing Salman would breathe growing up was religion, and it was one particular religion, it was Zoroastrianism. So he said, this was compelling to me. I was drawn by the recitation of their scriptures. So he said, I remember that my father kept me inside the house and never exposed me to anything, so I just wanted to see what it was. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, I entered into their church. And SubhanAllah, I want you to imagine a person entering into the masjid for the very first time, and they sit in the back and they look around. This is Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu entering into the church at the time. And he said, I was amazed by their recitation, by their ruku' and by their sujood, by their bowing and by their prostration. This is one of the most important historical elements of Persian Christianity versus Roman Christianity. The Council of Nicaea eliminated sujood, prostration, which is very odd because Isa alayhi salam, Jesus peace be upon him, until now is described in the Bible as praying how? The way you just prayed, falling on his face in prayer.
The Persian church maintained sajda. They still used to prostrate, so they still looked a lot like the way that Muslims pray. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, I was drawn by their salah. They were in salah, they were reciting their scripture, they were kneeling, they were prostrating. And he said, I sat there and I watched and time passed, an hour passes, two hours passed, and then he said, I come to this realization, I said, their religion is better than ours. I've been doing this whole thing my whole life. I'm a trained priest in my way, and I said, dinahum khayru min dinina. That religion is better than our religion. Sometimes you can see it, and this message is often, when someone comes in and they see the salah, and they see the qira'ah, and even if they don't understand it, they just, you see that realization, clicks. Like, wow, there's something so pure that's transcending through this salah. So he said, I said, their religion is better than ours. So he said, I forgot myself and I lost track of time. And he said, and it reached the time of sunset, so what would have been the equivalent of maghrib at the time, right? So they prayed again at sunset, and it was their last prayer. And he said, and their leader came to me. The priest of the church came to me. And I said to him, where did this religion come from? Where is this religion from? And he said, Asham, which is greater Syria. Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and what am I missing? Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, of course, itself. So greater Syria, Asham. So it's from Asham. So he said, I went back home after that, and his world was rocked. The only question he had in that conversation was, where is this religion from? And he said, Asham.
So he said, by the time I got home, I mean, his father had set off panic throughout the entire city. Throughout Asbahan, he was sending people to look for Salman everywhere. He thought that maybe he was kidnapped. He thought that maybe he died. He thought the worst, right? And so he said, my father finds me, and my father embraces me. And he says, oh, my son, where were you? I sent you to the garden. Where did you end up going? What happened? Is everything okay? All these questions. So I said to him, oh, my father, I went looking for the garden, and I got lost, but I passed by this place, and it was a place of worship, and I heard recitations. So I got drawn into it. So I went inside, and it was a church. And I watched them pray and recite. His father, his whole life, had been trying to stop him from hearing about anything but the way that he taught him. I mean, Zoroastrianism, in Persia, you're here, you're being trained, you're being groomed for this one position. And so his father panics. And what does he say? He says, there's no khair, there's no good in that religion of theirs. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, he says, I've got to be honest, dad, dinuhum khairum min dinina. I think their religion is better than our religion. His father loses his mind. And reacts, not in an intelligent way, he doesn't sit there and sit with him and try to prove to him his own din. His father instead takes his son, and he chains his hands and his legs. And he imprisons him in his own home. And he says, you're not leaving this house. Shames him. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu goes from being the high priest in the home, that everyone knows to come to every single week when they gather for their worship. The beloved son of his father, to now being the worst child, the curse of his father.
Humiliated. The people come into the house, they look at him, they see him chained up. And Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu has been disgraced. And subhanAllah, all that does is it makes him want the truth more. The fact that his father responded that way only increased him in a desire for the truth even more. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was not discouraged. In fact, Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said that I was able to send a letter to the Christians. And I said to them, the people of that church, so the implication is that he basically had one servant that was cooperating with him. The letter said that you told me that your religion originated from Syria. The next time the merchants come from Ash-Sham, because remember there were trade routes and there were seasons where you went from Persia to Yemen, Yemen to Ash-Sham, Mecca to the different places, Rihat al-Shita'i wa-Saif, the trade journey in the winter, the trade journey in the summer. So he said the next time, the next season, when the merchants come from Ash-Sham, let me know that they have arrived and I'm going to go back to Ash-Sham with them. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu gets the message to them and some time passes and there are some merchants that come from Ash-Sham and they go about their business and they finish their business. And the letter is snuck back to Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu that the merchants of Ash-Sham, the Christian merchants of Ash-Sham have finished their business and now they're ready to head back. And Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, so I escaped from the imprisonment of my father and I joined these people and I made my way back to Ash-Sham.
So SubhanAllah, you have this young man now who got lost on the way to his father's garden and ended up in a church and now he's being called by his fitrah, being called by his origin to go to Ash-Sham with a group of people that don't speak the same language as him, that are not like him, putting himself in a very vulnerable situation all because he wants the truth. And in the midst of a heated war between the Romans and the Persians, he's going as a Persian, entering into Roman territory, even as a civilian where things at any moment could turn hostile to him. But Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu wants to go to the source. He was so drawn by this religion that he wanted to learn from the most knowledgeable person in the religion. So he said, we got to Ash-Sham and Salman radiyaAllahu anhu didn't get distracted. Now, he got to Damascus and in Damascus, he could have looked around and said, you know what? Now that I think about it, I'm a young man. I've never had a chance to explore life. I'm free. Let me go check this place out and check that place out. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu says, as soon as we got to Damascus, I said, who is the most knowledgeable person in this place, in this religion? Who knows the religion best? So they took him to this priest in the church in Damascus. And Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, I went to him and I said to him, oh, so and so, I like this religion of yours. Allow me to stay with you and to serve you in the church. And in return, I will learn from you and I will pray with you. So basically, take me as a servant here. I'm not coming to ask you anything. I don't want any money from you. I don't expect anything in return. Let me just be a servant. I'll clean up. I'll take care of anything that you need. I'll basically be your assistant, whatever you want from me.
But let me learn from you and let me pray with you. I need mentorship. SubhanAllah, he understands the value of mentorship very early on. And so this man says, come on in. He accepts him. Now, this story could be very beautiful at this point, right? I mean, Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, a high priest in Persia, leaves his father's home to study this new religion, the way of Christ. He wants to understand Christianity in the fullest sense. He found these righteous people in Persia. This man is supposed to be very righteous and also be a learned scholar. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu says, this man turned out to be the most corrupt and evil human being I ever met in my life. Think about the fitna, the test of that. He was a complete crook. Now, Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu described his father in favorable terms, right? So if you're attaching just religion to people and people experiences, the head of my people, the father, right, who was appointing me as the head priest, was affectionate with me. He was someone who was good. Yes, we had a fallout because I started to stray away from the religion, but he was a good man. This man, who they say is the most knowledgeable Christian, is a complete crook. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu could have said, forget this religion. I'm sneaking my way back to Persia. I'm going to apologize to my dad and I'm going to go back and be a high priest once again and forget this experiment of Christianity and seeking the truth. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is stuck. He says that this man was such a crook. He said he would go out there and he'd give these emotional sermons about charity, about giving sadaqa. And then all he'd do, people would come with their most valuable possessions, their most valuable charity, is he'd take it and he'd store it in a place in the church and he wouldn't give any of it to the poor. Just a few coins to be able to satisfy them to say that he's giving the charity that's coming into the church.
So he's stealing their money. Everything that he told them to do, he did the opposite. The man would commit all sorts of fawahish, all the shameless deeds. No private worship. I was looking for someone I could worship with all day. The guy had no interest in worship whatsoever. And Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, abghattuhu bughdan shadeedan, I hated this man with every fiber in my body. I couldn't stand this man. What a horrible human being. And he said he had these chests, these treasure chests of all the gold and silver of the people and only I knew where they were. And I was thinking to myself, how do I expose this man? And think about how vulnerable he is. If Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu comes out and says, oh people, I want you to know that your high priest is corrupt. He's a young Persian man. No one knows who he is. They'll just say that he's here to cause some sort of trouble and they'll all kill him. It's not going to work, right? So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was stuck. I don't know what to do. How do I show the people who this man really is? So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, he says, so as I was trying to figure out what to do about this man, suddenly he died. And when he died, I mean, they put on the most elaborate ceremonies and funeral about him. He was their precious leader, their beloved leader. So he said they started to do all these plans in the church and they started to gather from all over. And the people cried and they were emotional. And he said at that moment when they gathered, I stood up and I said, wallahi, this man was an evil man. Everything he used to command you to do, he did the opposite of it. And everything he used to take from you for charity, he used to keep for himself. And the people were full of anger, like you better prove what you're saying or else you are going to die.
Salman is risking his life by saying who this man actually is. And so as they are about to pounce on him, Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, standing in the church in Damascus, he says, I'll prove to you what I'm saying. Follow me. Takes them into his room in the church, the quarter of the priest. And he pulls out the treasure chest. And you imagine the scene, he starts pulling out your mom's bracelet. And all the gold and silver that you worked so hard for, your precious belongings. And he says, here is the charity that you thought you were giving to the poor. He was storing it all in his room. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said that by the time I finished showing them all of his hiding spots and explaining the type of corruption that the man used to wreak, he said at that point, they said, wallahi, we will never bury him. They took the body of their priest and they crucified him. And they pelted him with stones. I mean, out of anger. They just took their anger out on his corpse in front of everyone. So they made a public display of their anger of him and pelted him with stones. And he says they left him up there until his corpse rotted and became so filthy that they took it down and threw it in the dumpster. This was the ending of this man, subhanAllah. I mean, it was complete hatred towards him because of what he did to the people. And Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was in a predicament. Now you talk about being let down when the person who taught you religion ends up being corrupt. When you attach your faith to a human being. Think about the fitna for Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. This isn't just his sheikh. This is the only sheikh that he knew. This is the only person who he was taught was a representation of this new religion that he embraced. You think about the fitna of that.
SubhanAllah, when you read the story of Malcolm X, al-Hajj, Malik al-Shabaz, rahimAllah, and how his mind was just boggled. When you find the corruption of someone that you dedicate yourself to. I dedicated myself to this man and this is what he became. Forget about this religion, right? Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was wise, he was smart, he was sincere. He refused to judge the religion by the actions of that man. So the religion itself still has some value. There's something here that's divine that I need to learn. If this man is a failure, he is his own failure. That's not the failure of the religion, that's the failure of this man alone. That's the wisdom and the sincerity of Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. So Salman radiyaAllahu anhu said, so they brought another man and they appointed him in his place. What do you think was the situation of this man? Corrupt, righteous. Salman radiyaAllahu anhu said, I've never seen anyone more righteous than this man who wasn't a follower of Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam. The most righteous man I ever saw that wasn't a follower of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. He said, this was a man, the way he described him, he said, I never saw a man who doesn't offer the five daily prayers that was better than him. He said, this was a man that would strive day and night to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That would cry when he would recite the scripture. That would exhort the people to give charity and would give everything that he had. This was a man who was dedicated to the church. And Salman radiyaAllahu anhu said, I love this man like I never loved anyone before. SubhanAllah, look at the extreme. وَمَن يَتَقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْ لَهُ مَخْرَجًا وَيَرْزُقُهُ مِنْ حَيْثِ لَا يَحْتَسَبُ Salman had taqwa and Allah made a way out for him. Salman radiyaAllahu anhu was sincere. Allah tested him with a roadblock in his journey.
And now he's tasting the sweetest moments in his journey of Christianity, which at that time is the closest manifestation of the truth. This is the time of Jahiliyyah, before the time of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Trying to find the pure message of Isa islam, the pure message of Jesus peace be upon him. And he said, I dedicated myself to him and I worshipped alongside him. And he would advise me and I would take his advice. And he would seek advice from me and I would advise him. I mean this was the best relationship that you could have between a scholar and a student. And then he said, the man got sick and he was about to die. Salman radiyaAllahu anhu went from the worst to the best. He's finally immersed in this new religion. He's drawn to what he heard in the church in Persia. He's tasting the sweetness. And of course, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Allah was pleased with baqaya min ahl al-kitab. There were these gems from the people of the book in the seas of people that had gone astray. This was clearly one of them. Salman radiyaAllahu anhu was with a righteous man. And now he says, I'm at his bedside. And as he's dying, I'm talking to him and I say to him, Oh my teacher, he said, wallahi, I love you like I've never loved anyone before. It's an emotional parting from his teacher. Salman never saw his father die. He's watching this man die. Salman radiyaAllahu anhu says, and the decree of Allah has come to you as it has been promised. What do you advise me to do? What do I do after you die? I don't know who they're going to bring after you. I don't know what type of character he's going to be. I don't know if his religion is going to be pure. What do I do? And he says, the man says to me, ya abunayt, oh my son,
wallahi, I do not know of a single person who follows what I followed. Because the people are doomed and they have changed the religion of Jesus peace be upon him. Except for a scholar in Mosul, in Iraq. Go back to him, tell him I sent you, follow him, and learn from him as you used to learn from me. So Salman radiyaAllahu anhu is being sent back to the Persian Empire, back to Iraq. There are no flights, direct flights from Damascus to Mosul at the time. Just think about this for a moment. Seriously, perceive it like these are journeys across the world, across hostile warring empires, and Salman doesn't have travel experience. He doesn't have anyone to protect him. And Salman radiyaAllahu anhu is being told, go make this journey and find this man. In Mosul, Iraq. Tell him I sent you. So Salman radiyaAllahu anhu said, so I waited for him until he died. We washed him, we prayed janazah on him, we buried him. He said I took the little belongings that I had, and I make my way from Damascus to Mosul in Iraq. Now Mosul, by the way, prior to the council of Nicaea, was one of the centers of Eastern Christianity. It was actually an episcopal seat in the Assyrian church of the East in the 6th century. So this is a place that has a rich history, and he's going to find this small group of people and this teacher that they have. So he said I found the man, I made my way to Mosul, Iraq, I found him and I said to him, oh so and so, my teacher in Damascus advised me after he died to come to you, and told me that you follow the same religion, the same way that he follows, and that I should stay with you. So he said he told me to come with me and to stay with me. So he said I stayed with this man, and I found him to be upon the way of my previous teacher, a righteous man,
worshipping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I learned from him, I studied with him, and I was pleased because there was continuity in the journey, right? One sheikh to another sheikh basically, right? Scholar to scholar, righteousness continues. And again, another gem from the people of the book in the sea of misguidance. Then he said he starts to die too, just my luck. And that tells you by the way, this hadith tells you, that when the Prophet ﷺ talks about these few gems left of Ahlul Kitab, that this was a dying generation. And the Prophet ﷺ talks about mawt al ulama, even in this ummah, right? The death of the scholars. That when you see the death of scholars in succession, that it's a dangerous sign of the well-being of the ummah. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easy for us. So this man's dying, and Salman radhiAllahu anhu said, I came to his side and I said to him, Oh my teacher, I went from Persia to Damascus. I went through this journey with a person who was a straight, and then I accompanied a righteous man, and then he passed away, he sent me to you, and now you're passing away, what do I do? Where are you going to send me? I mean, can I at least go to Baghdad, or can I go to another place in Iraq? He says to him, Oh my son, he said, Wallahi, the only person I know who practices the religion the way that we practice it, is a man in Nusaybin. So go to Nusaybin, and stay in Nusaybin. So now we're getting on the Turkish side. And follow this person, close to them, still within Iraq, follow this person, tell him that I sent you, and do with him what you did with me. So he said, I stayed with him, buried him, went to Nusaybin. Nusaybin was the center of what was known as Nestorian Christianity, prior to its collapse. So the Nestorians, which were sort of the outlawed Christians,
went into hiding in Nusaybin, and he's finding this teacher here, that he was directed to. So Salman said, I make my way to Nusaybin. I get to Nusaybin, I find this man, and I tell him that so and so sent me to you, and he said you're on the religion of Isa, you're on the religion of Christ. Can I stay with you? He says, come on in. So I stayed with him in the church, I found him to be upon the way of my previous two teachers, and then he started to die too. So Salman says to him, oh so and so, I was advised to go from Damascus to Mosul, and then from Mosul to Nusaybin. And now I have found that you two are passing away, what do you advise me? He says, no one follows this religion that I know of except for this one scholar in Amuriyah, Amurium, which is a part of Anatolia in Turkey. So go to Amuriyah and tell him that I sent you. Your mind is already spinning, imagine actually having to live this journey. Subhanallah, like where am I going from place to place to place. So he said I went to Amuriyah, and I stayed with this man, and I found him to be upon the way of his companions, righteous. I learned from him, and keep in mind that every sheikh is giving him a different perspective but within the same correct creed, right? And he's learning from their akhlaq, from their character. So think about the growth and the accumulation of knowledge and perspective and mentorship, the refinement of Salman's faith and character. Then he said this guy starts to die too. So he said, I said to him, oh so and so, I was sent from Damascus to Mosul to Nusaybin to Amuriyah, and now you're dying too, where do I go? He said to him, listen, I only know a man back in Ash-Sham. Go back to Damascus where you started,
and look for this person, and stay with him, until you learn from him, and until the decree of Allah comes. So he said I went back to Ash-Sham, I stayed with this man, I learned from him, and he said then this man started to die too. So he says, I went to him and I said, and this is by the way the explanation, Salman says I took him by the hand on his deathbed. I said rahimakallah, may Allah have mercy on you. I went from this place to this place, Damascus, to Mosul, to Nusaybin, to Amuriyah. Now back to Damascus, what am I supposed to do at this point? And this man gives him the news, he says to him, listen, Ya Bunei, oh my son, I do not know anyone upon this religion, upon this way, in its purest manifestation, that exists in the world today. That's it. I'm your last one. Your journey comes back full circle. You're back in Damascus and I don't know anyone that still practices this religion the way that we practice it, the pure way of Jesus, peace be upon him. But, he says, there has come the time where Allah will surely send the next prophet, a descendant of Ibrahim alayhi salam, Rasoolan ismuhu Ahmed. So he gave him the name. He said, a messenger whose name is Ahmed, where will he appear? He will appear in the land of the Arabs and he will migrate, he will make hijrah, to a land between two harras, two lava fields. Medina is between these two harras, right? If you look at the geography of Medina, land with black rocks, it's situated right there. And he said, the land will be known by its palm trees. The land will be known by its palm trees. So he gives him a very descriptive understanding
of what he should be looking for in terms of the location. He says about the prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he says, ask for him, there are three characteristics that you should look for. Number one, he has a seal on his back of prophethood, Khatam al-Nabuwah, and it is unmistakable. Right between his shoulder blades, there is a distinct birthmark that does not belong or exist on any other human being. Number two, if you give him charity, he won't eat from it. Number three, if you give him a gift, he will eat from it. So I'm giving you the location, and I'm giving you the description of the prophet, but that's it, I don't know anyone else that follows this way. So now, at least before Salman radiyaAllahu anhu was being told, go from this city to that city to this city to that city, now he's got this, the land of the Arabs, palm trees, you know, a man with a seal on his back, is he going to go start searching people's backs, giving people gifts and charity? What do I do? Where do I go? And what's the timeline? We don't know. At least Abdullah ibn Salam radiyaAllahu anhu we spoke about was waiting in Medina, they already knew he was coming there. Salman, what do you think? Salman radiyaAllahu anhu was in Damascus, and he's completely lost, he said the man died, I buried him, and he said, and then I stayed in Ash-Sham, as long as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala willed that I should stay. So I purchased some things, I got into the suq, I got into the marketplace, I sold and I bought here and there, and I basically waited for someone to take me to the land of the Arabs. Now when they say the land of the Arabs, at the time they mean Jazirat al-Arab, they mean the Gulf, because this is now within the territory of the Roman Empire. So I basically waited for the caravans that would come from the Arabian Gulf to ask them to take me to this place, and I basically find my way from there. So Salman radiyaAllahu anhu, he says that I'm in Ash-Sham, and then there was this group of merchants that came from a tribe known as Banu Kalb.
Now Banu Kalb, this was the tribe of Zayd ibn al-Harithah radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. Zayd, the adopted son of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam, Al-Kalbi. This tribe, by the way, it's ironic subhanAllah, because Zayd radiyaAllahu anhu, how did Zayd end up in the house of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam? He was kidnapped and sold into slavery. He was out on a journey with his mother, and he was kidnapped and sold into slavery, and eventually, you know, sold to the cousin of Khadijah radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, gifted to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam, adopted by the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam. His journey started off with what though? A kidnapping, and then being sold into slavery. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, I said to these people, where are you from? They described Mecca. So I said, will you take me back with you? They said, what are you going to give us? He said, here, take everything that I own. Here are the cows, here are the sheep, you can take all of my possessions. I just want you to get me back to that place. I need to travel with a caravan. Take me to that place and help me understand the geography. Help me understand the lay of the land a bit. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, so they agreed, and they took me. And then we got to Wadi al-Qura, outside Medina, it's the outskirts, the land of the Arab. And he said, we took a break, and on this pit stop, they suddenly jumped on me, and they tied me up, and they taped my mouth, and they went and they sold me into slavery. SubhanAllah, fitna again, another test of your faith. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, this is in al-Bukhari by the way, in a separate hadith, and this hadith broke my heart, subhanAllah. Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said that I was sold from slave owner to slave owner over 13 times, bid'ah to ashar, between 13 and 19 times in the Arabic language. I went from slave owner to slave owner to slave owner to slave owner.
Every one of them has a different mood, a different mindset, a different temper. I have to deal with this person and that person. At least I was a free man on a journey of looking for my faith. And now I'm spending years in captivity. And subhanAllah, he says, min rabbin ila rabb, min rabbin ila rabb, from rabb to rabb. And Abu Huraira radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, he narrates this from Salman radiyaAllahu anhu, he says, Salman did not know that the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam forbade us from calling people rabb, master, lord to lord. He didn't know. So he's narrating this narration, because they used to call the slave owner, rabb. He's narrating the narration, and he didn't know at the time that the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam forbade us from using that word to describe the slave owners. So here he is now, over 30 years. Salman radiyaAllahu anhu went through this journey for over three decades, trying to find the truth. And every single time a difficulty comes to him, it doesn't deter him. But instead he finds a new connection to Allah subhanAllah ta'ala. Here you have a Zoroastrian high priest, who is the son of a leader in Persia, who is a Christian scholar, a biblical scholar, who spoke Persian, Hebrew, knew all of the scriptures of the Zoroastrians and the Torah, and the Bible, the Injil. And he's being passed around with no protection whatsoever amongst the Arabs. Hajeeb, it's weird, right? What's going on with this man? So Salman radiyaAllahu anhu said, and then finally I was sold to this Jewish man from Banu Qurayza. So he said, this man lived in Yathrib. So I mean, wouldn't you have given up hope at this point? Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is in his 50s, by the way, because he's the same age as the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam.
He's not a young man anymore. The youth is gone. Salman radiyaAllahu anhu said, the slave owner takes me, and he takes me to his garden in Yathrib, and he explains to me what I need to do in the palm trees, and then Salman goes, land of palm trees. Okay, this is interesting. And as Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu starts to ask about the land and go out and explore the land, Yathrib sits between these two lava-like fields, black rocks, two harras. So he says, it might be it. This might be it. So Salman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, I stayed there, and for a long time I didn't hear anything. I just worked as a slave. I just continued on my way, working and waiting for some sign from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Salman radiyaAllahu anhu says, one day I'm in the tree, and I'm high up in the tree, and I'm picking the dates from the palm trees, and he said, my master is sitting in the garden, enjoying his nice cup of water, hanging out, and I'm up there. And he says, his cousin comes to him, and he says, qatilAllahu banu qila, may Allah destroy banu qila. Qila is the mother of the Ansar. The maternal link between Al-Aws and Al-Khazraj, the two tribes from Yemen, is a woman named Qila. And back then when they want to insult you, they call you by the name of your mother, instead of the name of your father. So he said, qatilAllahu banu qila, this man is talking to the master of Salman, and he says, may Allah destroy the children of Qila. So he said, why? ma khabaruhum? What happened? Why are you saying this? And he said, in one breath, wallahi innahum lamujtami'oona fee quba'a ala rajulin qadima'alayhim min makka yaz'umu annahu nabi.
There they are in Quba', gather round this man from Mecca, who migrated from Mecca and claims to be a prophet. That's a lot in one sentence for Salman radhiAllahu ta'ala anhu to hear, while at the top of a tree. Salman radhiAllahu ta'ala anhu said, akhadatni al-arura, like chills went down my spine, he said, I almost fell out of the tree. I almost fell out of the tree, and I had to grab once again onto the branches, and he said, I came down, and I was shivering, and he said, I went up to the man that came to my master, the cousin of my master, and I said to him, ma taqool, ma taqool, ma taqool, what did you say, what did you say, what did you say? And he said, that my master grabbed me by my shoulder, and he punched me in the face. Knocked me out. And he said to him, wa ma sha'nuka antu, what business do you have? Back to work. So Salman radhiAllahu ta'ala anhu said, collected himself, got back to work, and he said, the next day I went to the woman in the household, meaning the wife of the man, and I said to her, habli yawmin, can I have a day off? So she said, go ahead, you can have the day off. So Salman radhiAllahu ta'ala anhu said, I quickly went, I collected some firewood, and I sold it, and then I purchased some dates with that firewood. So when the evening came, he spent the day basically going and collecting wood, sold the wood, got some dates, he said, I immediately rushed to Quba. And I started to look for this man that claims to be a prophet. Now Salman's not going to get his hopes all the way up, he needs to test the man. Right? I've already heard, and when you saw the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, I mean, what did Abdullah ibn Salam radhiAllahu anhu say, the chief rabbi of Medina, when he saw the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam? I saw his face and I already knew, this was him.
So of course Salman radhiAllahu anhu sees the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and something is going to hit him, but at the same time, he needs to make sure. He's been disappointed many, many, many times in this journey. I need to make sure this is the prophet of Allah. So he said, I got to Quba, I saw the sahaba gathered around the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. I said, where is this man? They said, this is him. I went to him and I brought some dates. I said to him, I hear that you're a good man and that you're in need, that you're people who have migrated to this land and that you're in need. So he said, I brought you some dates, sadaqa, some charity, so that you can benefit from it. So the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, he smiled, he thanked me, and Rasulullah, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, he took off his burt, he had a green garment from Yemen, took it off, he spread it on the ground, he put the dates, he called the sahaba, he said, go ahead and eat, and Salman radhiAllahu anhu was sitting there watching him, he said, he didn't touch the dates. The prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, didn't eat. So he said, wahida, that's one. He's talking to himself, he said, that's one sign. He doesn't eat sadaqa. The prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, did not touch the sadaqa. So he said, some time went by, and a few days later I asked once again, the woman of the house, hebli yeoman, can I have another day? She said, go ahead. So he said, I went, gathered some wood, got some dates, sold the wood, got some dates, went back to Quba. I went to the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and I said, listen, last time I came, I realized that you didn't eat from the food that I brought you. So he said, here are some dates, and he said, hadiyatun lak, it's a gift for you. So he said, the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, took off his garment, spread it on the ground, put the dates, and the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, called the sahaba, and the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and the companions ate from the dates.
So the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, is struggling now to hold his excitement. He says, hadiyatun, that's two, two out of three signs. So now I've got the geography right. I've got two of three signs. But how am I going to ask the man to see his back? Because the third sign is a seal, khatam an-nubuwwah, on the back of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and I'm a Persian guy. You know, it's kind of deeply suspicious if I just walk up, hey, you mind if I see your back? So Salman, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum, he said, so I started to watch the back of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, when I could. Whenever I could pull away from the house of my master. So I'd go and I'd search and I'd look and I'd follow the back of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and see maybe if his garment came down, if his shirt came down, so I could just see his back. SubhanAllah, he says, the first time I get to see his back is at the janaza of one of his companions. And it was the first sahabi buried in al-Baqir, next to the masjid of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. Who was that sahabi, according to the most correct opinion? I'll give you a clue. He's the first person we spoke about in this season of the first. The first Muslim from Medina is also the first burial in Medina. Who is he? As'ad ibn Zurarah, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum. So Salman is watching the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, bury As'ad ibn Zurarah, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum, with his companions. Imagine al-Baqir with all of its glory, tens of thousands of companions buried there now, and all of the righteous scholars and tabi'een. May Allah subhanAllah grant us a death in Medina, Allahuma ameen. And Salman, radhiAllahu anhum, is watching the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and the companions bury the very first man there. Salman, radhiAllahu anhum, said, so I watched from behind the funeral.
And I watched the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, lead the prayer on him. And then I watched the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and he was wearing two shawls sitting between his sahaba. And then when it came time to put him into the grave, to put the body of As'ad, radhiAllahu anhum, or Kulthum al-Hadim, in one narration, in the grave, he said that the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, shawl started to move. So he said, so I started to go and kept looking at the back of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and after they did the burial, he said, RasulAllah, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, noticed what I was trying to do. The prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, caught on to what Salman was trying to do. So he said, the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, lowered his garment. Salman, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum, sees on the back of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, that birthmark, that seal, that he'd been looking for for over 30 years in the middle of the janaza of the first Muslim in Medina. Salman, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum, said, I could not contain myself. Qala, thankadabtu alaihi. I threw myself on the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. Qala, uqabbiluhu, and I was kissing the back of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, kissing the seal of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and crying and crying, and while I'm weeping, what's happening? The sahaba are just looking like this is a really strange sight, right? Like, what's happening here? This Persian man just jumps on the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, is letting him. And he's hugging the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and he's kissing the back of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and he said, hatta hada't, after I calmed down, meaning it took a while for me to contain myself, and the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, said, can I turn around? Tahawwal, and I said, yes. Qala, faji'tu ilaihi amsahu dam'i. He said, I started to wipe my eyes,
and after I calmed down, I mean, he was weeping loudly, he said, I said, to the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, or rather, he said to me, ma khabaruk? What's your story? SubhanAllah. After traveling the world, and going from over 13 slave owners, and the beatings, and the confusion, and the corruption, and all of the fitna, all the trials and tribulations, and everything we go through in this journey of Islam, we will not face the trials and tribulations that this man faced in his journey before even meeting the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. And he finally is right in front of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, says, ma khabaruk? Tell me your story. So he said, I told the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, my entire life story, in the graveyard. And he said to Ibn Abbas, and I'm telling you just as I told him that day. Remember, he's narrating the story. So he goes from Persia, to Damascus, to Iraq, to Turkey, to Syria, all over the place with the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. And then he says to the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, wa kuntu abhathu ank, and I was looking for you. And he broke down crying again. May Allah give us that meeting with the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. Like you think about that, subhanAllah, that journey to the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and that's our journey of life, right? That journey of being upon this way, to just finally find ourselves, bi-idhnin da'ni ta'ala, with the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and his companions, not in Jannatul Baqi' but Jannatul Firdaus, around the held of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and Rasulullah, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, looking at you and giving you his attention and saying, ma sha'nuk? Tell me your story. This is a moment of Jannah, subhanAllah, after a difficult, difficult life that Salman radiyaAllahu anhu was living, and he said that, I told the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, everything, wa kuntu abhathu ank, and I was looking for you, ya Rasulullah.
And now here I am, before you. Imagine the validation that Salman radiyaAllahu anhu felt. Imagine the way that all the stress and all the trials and all the tribulation melt away, when he realizes that he's now arrived at the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and he's right in front of him. Yet his test is not over. Salman radiyaAllahu anhu has a problem. The man who owns him now, hates the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and refuses to let him free. So now, subhanAllah, another test and tribulation, he's in Al-Madina, and all this glory is unfolding around the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and he said, my master wouldn't let me go. The prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, would say to me, ya Salman katib, oh Salman, just, how can we get you free? How can we get you out? And the master of Salman would not set a price, wouldn't let him go. And he said that, in slavery, I missed. What did he say? He said, the man made me miss Badr and Uhud. Like, he didn't say, I missed praying in the masjid, I missed eating with the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, I missed all those days with the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. He said, I missed Badr and Uhud. Like, I hated that man for making me miss the battles with the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and being with the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, in his difficult times. And he said, and the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, said to me, ya Salman katib, oh Salman, free yourself. What is it that he needs? Faqultu lahu ya Rasulullah ma'indi, I don't have anything to free myself. So, he said, just go to your master and tell him anything he wants. The prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, is saying, anything that he wants, will free you. But get a price. So he said, I went to my master and he said to me, fine, you want freedom? He said to him, I want 300 palm trees. You get the land, you get the trees, you plant them.
And the trees have to come to life, so you got to see the trees through. Make sure they actually come to life. Oh, and by the way, I want 40 uqiyas of gold. By the way, over a thousand grams of gold. Salman, radiAllahu anhu, said, I was so disappointed, I didn't even go back and tell the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, what he said. And the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, came to me and he said, ya Salman, did you do what I said? And he said, ya Rasulullah, he set an impossible price. He said, what did he say? He said, 300 palm trees, the land, the trees, and you got to see them come to life. Take care of them until they come to life. And 40 uqiyas of gold. Ya Rasulullah, it's an impossible thing. The prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, without hesitating, he calls the sahaba, he says, a'inu akhaakum, everyone help your brother. Let's get on it. SubhanAllah. Talk about convert care. What is that person worth after the shahada moment? This is like undoubtedly the greatest shahada story of all time, right? I mean like, talk about a journey and the sahaba heard it and the baqi, but what is Salman worth? He doesn't have a powerful tribal collection or connection in a worldly sense. He doesn't have anyone to take care of him. He doesn't have anything to offer in the worldly sense. He's a Persian man. What's he worth in the dunya-y sense, right? In the worldly sense. The prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, didn't sit there and think and say, you know what? Tawakkal ala Allah, be patient, have sabr, I'll see you in Jannatul Firdaus with all the other ones. Like, I'll catch you later, you'll be okay inshAllah. Make dua, brother. He didn't say that to him. He said to the sahaba, everyone help your brother. So Salman radiAllahu anhu then watches and all of the sahaba start to come forth carrying their palm trees. One of them brings one, the other one brings two, the other one brings ten. Uthman radiAllahu ta'ala anhu brings the land and Uthman radiAllahu anhu brings twenty. Of course, Uthman was never outdone in karam, in generosity.
Until they collected three hundred palm trees to plant. Salman says, the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, said to me, Ya Salman, go dig up the land for the trees to be planted and then call me when you're done. So Salman radiAllahu anhu says, I went and I dug the holes, three hundred holes for the trees. And then I came back to the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, I said, Ya Rasulullah, I'm done. And he said, the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, came with his companions and he said, Rasulullah, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, got in every single one of those holes and said, Give me the tree and he planted it himself, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. Making dua and nourishing it. SubhanAllah, in one narration, Umar radiAllahu anhu planted one tree and it was the only tree that died. It's actually in one of, it's a hassan isnad. The one, not because something's wrong with Umar radiAllahu anhu, but because the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, had a special connection here. Right? Planted all 299 trees and then planted one in the place where Umar radiAllahu anhu planted the tree, according to one narration. So 300 trees from the hands of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. Talk about convert care. Didn't pass it off to someone else. And he said, all 300 of the trees came to life. Now there's one problem. Salman's like, where do I get all this gold from? 40 uqiyahs of gold. He said, while this is all happening, a man came to the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and he handed the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, a block of gold as a gift to the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, from the madad. So he said that the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, immediately took it. He said to me, go take this to your master. And he said, I looked at it and I said, ya Rasulullah, omatuhni hadihi, this is nice, what's this going to do? The prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, said, take it to him. And he said, Allah made it, so that when I took that gold to him, that block of gold, he said that it was exactly 40 uqiyahs.
Exactly what he demanded. So he said, he finally let me go, and he said, I never missed a mashhad, I never missed an event alongside the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, after that date. I'm going to give you one more story, subhanAllah, and then we'll continue, inshaAllah ta'ala, next week with Salman, radiyAllahu ta'ala, anhu, and how he now settles in Al-Madinah alongside the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. And I want you to just appreciate for a moment in this situation, that Salman, radiyAllahu ta'ala, anhu, is, as Abu Huraira, radiyAllahu ta'ala, anhu, called him, Abu al-Khitaabain. He's the father of the two books. Salman is the only man, possibly, in the world, that is a scholar of the Bible, a scholar of the Qur'an, and a scholar of the Zoroastrian scriptures. Speaks Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Aramaic, all fluently, and knows all of the books, and all of the scriptures, and all of the arguments. And, according to Imam al-Nawawi, rahimAllah, the first mutarjim, the first person to translate the Qur'an, translated parts of the Qur'an into Persian on behalf of the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. A unique man, a very strange person, subhanAllah, who ends up in Madinah, with this aura that surrounds him, and has been through what no other companion has been through to be alongside the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. And he's never been in a battle alongside the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. And then, the first battle he's going to witness is Khandaq, is al-Ahzab, where the largest army the Arabs have ever accumulated, has now gathered around Madinah, to wipe out the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and his companions. Like, I missed Badr and Uhud, and now here I am, and I'm with the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and his companions, what are we doing? By the way, the largest army in the world, in the Arab world, that we've ever seen,
they've all gathered and they're going to wipe us out now. They've decided to surround us from every direction and wipe us out. We're done. And the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, is asking the companions, give me your opinion, give me your opinion, give me your opinion, what do we do? The main discussion is, do we fight them inside the city, do we plant traps within Madinah, hide within our homes, and try to fight that way? Or do we go out the way that we did in Uhud, because Uhud was considered the outskirts of the city, and fight them out there and keep them away, keep the women and the children on the inside, and fight them out there. What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? And Salman radhiAllahu ta'ala says, Ya Rasool Allah, I have an idea. He says, what's the idea? He said, we in Persia, إذا خفنا تخندقنا When the Romans gather against us, what we would do is we'd build a trench, a khandaq. And the word khandaq is in Arabic and in Farsi, the same word, I guess with a little bit of variation, because I know someone's going to check me after this, but khandaq, we would build this trench. So he said, Ya Rasool Allah, Madinah is situated perfectly between two harras. Remember what the teacher told him in As-Shal? You have these two lava fields on each side of Madinah, so they won't be able to come with their horses over those. All you have to do is build one trench across the two harras, and then there is natural vegetation on the other side. So as a result of that, you are covered from all four directions, Ya Rasool Allah. And it will slow down their army, and all you have to do at that point is fight off the army from the khandaq. SubhanAllah, when Salman says this, all the sahaba look at Salman and they see the pleasure of the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. How the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam was pleased with the opinion of Salman radiAllahu ta'ala anhum. And the ansar and the muhajireen, they start to walk up and they say, this is our guy. Because Salman is an unclaimed man, he doesn't have a tribe.
So the different tribes, they start to say, Salman is one of us, Salman is one of us. This idea came from us, the ansar. This idea came from us, the muhajireen. This is bano so and so, bano so and so. And the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam looks at him, and he says, Salmanu minna ahl al-bayt. He said, no, no, Salman is mine. He's from the people of my household. Salman is family. Salmanu minna ahl al-bayt. Salman radiAllahu anhum is to be considered ahl al-bayt, from the family of the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. SubhanAllah, a journey of truth that took him from the son of the leader in Asbahan in Persia, around the fire, through the entire world, to the household of the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, to Rasulullah salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, looking at him and saying, Salmanu minna ahl al-bayt. And his strategy of how to build the trench, being the means by which Allah protected the people of Medina from being wiped out. Because from a numbers perspective, that army was so much smaller than what was coming from the outskirts on the heels of Uhud. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to be pleased with Salman radiAllahu anhu, to be pleased with the companions of the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, to send his peace and blessings on the Messenger salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, to gather us with our beloved Messenger salAllahu alaihi wa sallam in Al-Furdaus Al-A'la. We ask Allah who brought Salman radiAllahu anhu from far away in Persia, to be right in front of the Messenger salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, and to be pleased with the sight of the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to please us with the sight of our beloved Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. While he is pleased with us, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us the sincerity, in the juhad, in the struggle, and to grant us hidayah and guidance and thabat and firmness upon the right path throughout our journey. Allahumma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran. InshaAllah ta'ala next week we will continue with the other side of Salman radiAllahu anhu's story, which is rarely told, which is his way back to Persia.
So inshaAllah ta'ala next week, please do join us. Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
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