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The Firsts (Sahaba Stories) | The Forerunners of Islam
Bishr ibn al-Baraa (ra): The Story Behind the Poisoning of the Prophet ﷺ | The Firsts
Like his father, Bishr (ra) was an early Muslim and fierce defender of the faith. His story is forever marked by an incredible act of sacrifice. When poisoned food was served to the Prophet ﷺ, Bishr (ra) began eating alongside him. He died as a result, becoming a martyr who showed ultimate devotion. Discover even more about Bishr (ra), including some of the verses of the Qur’an that are connected to him.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
But what about his son? SubhanAllah, I was going to just do a biography of his son because his son has a bit more
of an extensive biography and kind of following in what we've been doing of looking at the children of Sahaba that were also children.
His son, Bishr ibn al-Bara', his oldest son, he went with him to take that bay'ah to the Prophet (ﷺ). To take that pledge to the Prophet (ﷺ).
So now, he's in an interesting situation because his father was the first to pledge and Banu Salimah is sort of looking for a replacement for al-Bara' ibn Ma'rur.
So the Prophet (ﷺ), he comes up to Banu Salimah and he says to them, "Man sayyidukum ya Bani Salimah?" Who is your sayyid? Who is your sayyid? Who is your leader? O Banu Salimah?
So they said, "Al-Jadd ibn Qays, 'ala anna fihi bukhl." They said it's al-Jadd ibn Qays but he's a little bit stingy. And the Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Wa ayyu da'in adwa min al-bukhl?"
What is worse of a trait in this regard than someone who's stingy? He said, "Bal sayyidukum al-abyad al-ja'd, Bishr ibn al-Bara'."
He said (ﷺ), rather the one who is your sayyid, who is your leader, is the fair complexion, because Bishr had a lighter complexion, curly haired boy, Bishr ibn al-Bara'.
So the Prophet (ﷺ) pointed towards him and he said, no he is your sayyid, he is your leader. Bishr was very young but the Prophet (ﷺ) propped him up, right, in this situation.
So it doesn't appear that he actually sort of assumes the place of being the leader of Banu Salimah. But in spirit the Prophet (ﷺ) is saying, that's your real sayyid.
Like the Prophet (ﷺ) is putting him in a high rank, knowing who his father was, knowing what his father did, knowing what his father intended, and knowing what was in store for Bishr. So now comes the story of Bishr ibn al-Bara'.
Bishr ibn al-Bara' was old enough to receive into his home and to be paired in mu'akhah, in brotherhood, with one of the Muhajireen.
Again this is only for the note takers and people that just want to know who these are. The person that he was paired with was a man by the name of Waqid ibn Abdullah.
And Waqid ibn Abdullah was a Muhajir that became Muslim in Mecca before Dar al-Arqam. Meaning he's one of the earliest Muslims who we know nothing about pretty much. Al-Waqid ibn Abdullah.
So al-Waqid ibn Abdullah lives in the house of Bishr ibn al-Bara'. And there's a reason why I bring this up because there is a story that's going to unfold with the two of them. Bishr ibn al-Bara' was married to a woman by the name of Qubaisa bint Sayfi.
They had a daughter named 'Aliya and they accepted Islam as well. So his wife and his daughter are also Sahabiyyat. Now you're going to get a few ayat of Quran, or a few contexts, asbab al-nuzul, from the
story of Bishr ibn al-Bara'. The first one. The Jewish tribes that were in Al-Madinah.
Obviously, just like the people of Mecca could not accept the Prophet (ﷺ) as the Prophet because he's from Banu Hashim, Banu Qurayza, Banu Qaynuqa', Banu Nadir could not accept
that the Prophet (ﷺ) would not be from them. So this rejection continues of the Prophet (ﷺ) because he doesn't fit the mold of what they were waiting for.
So Bishr ibn al-Bara' and Mu'adh ibn Jabal (رضي الله عنهما) and a group of companions, they go to the Jewish tribes in Madinah and they say something very interesting to them.
They say that you used to pray against Al-Aws and Al-Khazraj, you used to pray against us, and you used to call us mushrikeen, you used to call us polytheists, and you used to tell
us that God is going to send a Prophet that's going to end us here. Like you used to say this to us. You've been telling us this entire time, you idol worshippers, you nobody, you don't understand
anything about faith, we're settled here because we have a Prophet that is coming, that Prophet is going to be from us, and then that's the end of you here.
And now that that Prophet has come, you reject him and you show enmity towards him, and instead of praying for him and with him, you pray against him and you plot against him.
How does this make sense? Now subhanAllah in the gathering, or amongst those that they were addressing, was a man by the name of Sallam ibn Mishkam.
And Sallam ibn Mishkam, Mishkam is more likely what his actual name is, as the scholars mentioned, but the Arabs wrote it, Mishkam, Sallam ibn Mishkam, was the head of Banu Nadir.
He's a cousin of Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the father of Safiyyah (رضي الله عنها). But he's one of the heads of the tribes. And he was religious, and he was one of those that was waiting for a Prophet to come, but
he rejected the Prophet as soon as he came. And Sallam, when the Prophet actually came, he said that this Prophet that you are claiming
is a Prophet, has none of the signs that we actually believed in. We know nothing of him to be a Prophet. His cousin Huyayy ibn Akhtab, remember the conversation, is it him, between him and his friend?
Yeah, it's him. So are we going to follow him? Absolutely not. Right? We're going to oppose him with every single fiber of our being. Sallam is saying, we don't know who this person is, we don't accept him to be a Prophet at
all, and the book that he brings and the revelation, it's all foreign to us. So you had those from the Rabbis that accepted Islam, like Abdullah ibn Salam (رضي الله عنه),
you had those that said, we know it's him, but we don't like that he's not from us, we can't accept a Prophet not from Bani Israel, just like the same jahl, the
same ignorance in Mecca, we can't accept a Prophet who's not from Banu Makhzum or from Banu 'Adi, or whatever it may be. And then you had those that said, we have no idea who he is.
We reject him, we don't believe that he's him, and we're going to oppose him with every fiber of our being. So when you read in [Al-Baqarah 2:89],
"Wa lamma ja'ahum kitabun min 'indillahi musaddiqun lima ma'ahum wa kanu min qablu yastaftihuna 'ala alladhina kafaru fa lamma ja'ahum ma 'arafu kafaru bihi fala'natullahi 'ala al-kafirin."
This is what this verse is referring to, it's this conversation between Bishr and Mu'adh and a small group of companions with these tribes, that you used to say, this Prophet's going to come and you're going to wipe us out, and you would pray for our destruction
with this Prophet, and now the Prophet's here, and you're the first people to disbelieve in him. So the verse says, So when there came to them a book of Allah that confirmed that which came before them, and they used to pray for victory over the disbelievers.
You know, SubhanAllah, this is an ayah, like if you don't know the sabab al-nuzul, like it actually is hard to grasp. Okay? "Wa kanu min qablu yastaftihuna 'ala alladhina kafaru." They used to pray for victory over alladhina kafaru, The disbelievers.
Who are the disbelievers in the first part of the verse? Just see if you can follow the logic, so next time when Ramadan starts and this is recited in the first night, you'll know what we're talking about, inshAllah ta'ala. The first part of the verse, "yastaftihuna 'ala alladhina kafaru,"
You used to pray for conquest over the disbelievers, is actually referring to the previous state of the Ansar. It's Aws and Khazraj before they became Muslim.
You were mocking them as kuffar, you were mocking them as disbelievers who don't understand the religion. "Fa lamma ja'ahum ma 'arafu Right? kafaru."
But then what came to them, when what came to them, which was known to them, came, "kafaru bihi," They disbelieved instead. "Fala'natullahi 'ala al-kafirin."
And so may the curse of Allah be upon al-kafirin. Like it switched the term and that was the whole point of Bishr and Mu'adh.
You used to say a prophet will come and wipe us out and would pray against us and now the prophet has come and you find yourself in this situation.
Where you have become exactly what you used to say about us in our previous days. So this is the first ayah that we get from Bishr ibn al-Bara'.
Now Bishr is someone who as Al-Dhahabi says was one of the people that was an archer in Badr. He was a very skilled archer. So the Prophet (ﷺ) "ista'malahu" (رضي الله عنه)
He used him as an archer and we know that the archers gave a significant advantage in the battle of Badr for the Prophet (ﷺ). And then you have another verse that we get some context from in the battle of Uhud.
When Allah mentions that "Thumma anzala 'alaykum min ba'di al-ghammi amanatan nu'asan." That after grief, He sent down a slumber upon you.
"Yaghsha ta'ifatan minkum." This is in [Ali 'Imran 3:154]. What is the "amanatan nu'asan"? What is that slumber that Allah is talking about here?
In the battle of Badr, I'm sorry in the battle of Uhud, the narrations and there are many so I'm just going to paraphrase them for the sake of time.
That when they were in the battle of Uhud and things became chaotic, Allah descended a peace upon them, like a tranquility upon them to where it looked like people that are
about to go to sleep, like momentarily. Like it made them so tranquil that they slouched behind their shields and then they were calm. So calm.
Bishr ibn al-Bara' says he was holding his sword and when that came down from the heavens, he temporarily dropped his sword and then he picked it back up with a firm grip.
So it was such a cooling feeling, a slumber that came upon them, a peace and a tranquility that it put them almost to sleep for a moment.
Because the battle is getting chaotic, now we've got all these directions being attacked from all these different directions. So you can imagine that those that stood the course, it's like it's slow-mo.
SubhanAllah, they're fighting with such tranquility, such sakinah, such ease. It's as if they went to sleep for a moment, right? And woke up refreshed.
So Bishr ibn al-Bara' is one of those people who was fighting bravely and then that came down and it like took him for a moment and he picked the sword back up and he continued to fight.
And so now when you hear this verse, that calmness, that tranquility, that peace, this is what Allah 'Azza wa Jall sends down to the believers in the midst of these moments.
SubhanAllah, you watch, I was watching, if I start talking about him, I won't be able to stop. Salih al-Ja'farawi rahimahullah ta'ala. And I was watching his last moments.
I don't know if you all saw when he was in the ambulance, this young man was taken, beaten, stabbed or shot, whatever it is, right? And in his last moments, the clarity, ya Allah, I'm like, subhanAllah, a man who's dying,
just coming out of torture, young man, 27 years old. Rahimahullah ta'ala wa taqabbalahu Allah. May Allah 'Azza wa Jall accept him from the shuhada and al-'illiyyin. Just calm, peace, tranquility.
It's like how do you find that clarity and that tranquility in the midst of these moments? So when Allah 'Azza wa Jall mentions that He descended that upon the believers, Bishr was amongst those people who was referenced in this verse in tafsir.
So that's the second narration we have from Bishr within the battle of Uhud. So he's, again, he's not a kid. He's old enough to fight in Badr. He's old enough to fight in Uhud. But he's a young man, generally speaking, a young man. And the Prophet (ﷺ) loves him because of who his father is.
And the Prophet (ﷺ) loves him because of who he is. Now the person, the enmity between Bishr and Banu Qurayza and Banu Nadir and Banu Qaynuqa' was a very real enmity.
So when we talked about Zayd ibn al-Arqam and we talked about Al-Bara' ibn 'Azib, the enmity was with the munafiqeen, was with the hypocrites. Here the enmity is with those tribes, that there's a frequent run-in that we see with those tribes.
Waqid ibn Abdullah, Waqid ibn Abdullah, who was the brother of Bishr. They lived together and he was his brother from the people of Mecca.
He went out in one of the expeditions and he was the one, or he participated in the
killing of a man that was very aggressive towards the Prophet (ﷺ). Of course, he was one of the main people that was causing that pain to the Prophet (ﷺ). (ﷺ).
And his name had something in it that actually provoked a superstition. His name was 'Amr ibn al-Hadrami. So when he killed 'Amr ibn al-Hadrami, or he was one of those in the expedition of those
that fought against 'Amr ibn al-Hadrami and he participated in that killing and he was the main one that sort of the killing was attributed to in that expedition. Those tribes, they then turned this into an omen. They turned this into a superstition.
They said 'Amr, his name is 'Amr, now the war will go on.
Like there's something about his name that the war has been given years.
And Hadrami, the war is present now. And Waqid means someone that triggers, that lights the torch, right?
So they say the torch of war has been lit. And so they took it as a sign that Waqid was cursed and that they were going to overcome the Prophet (ﷺ) and they were going to succeed against the Prophet
(ﷺ). So they took pride in that. They started to celebrate. And of course all of it in fact flipped against those three tribes.
And as for Waqid himself, Waqid (رضي الله عنه) lived until the time of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه). "Wa laysa lahu 'aqib" and he had no children. And while he's very quiet in the books, he became Muslim early on in Mecca.
He lived all the way to 'Umar (رضي الله عنه) and he participated in all of the battles alongside the Prophet (ﷺ). So that's Waqid ibn Abdullah.
Now here is Bishr's most significant moment in the seerah. And it is a very significant moment.
Remember Sallam, okay, Sallam who was the person who was behind the verse or intended by the
verse that you disbelieved once the Prophet (ﷺ) actually came with the message that was known to you. So Sallam led Banu Nadir. He was killed. Okay.
Obviously, these three tribes plotted against the Prophet (ﷺ). And the Khandaq comes, Khaybar and those three tribes were defeated by the Prophet (ﷺ). (ﷺ).
It was his wife whose name was Zaynab bint al-Harith who sought to poison the Prophet (ﷺ). So it was the widow of Sallam that sought to poison the Prophet (ﷺ).
So she asked, she said, what's the favorite part of the lamb for the Prophet (ﷺ)? (ﷺ). So obviously the Prophet (ﷺ) loved the shoulder. So she took the lamb and she took a very strong poison and she put it into that lamb and then
she served it to the Prophet (ﷺ). The only person who ate alongside the Prophet (ﷺ) was Bishr. Okay.
So the Prophet (ﷺ), he took it, he chewed it and the Prophet (ﷺ), when he chewed it, Bishr had taken a bite of it as well.
And the Prophet (ﷺ) told the Sahaba, hold back your hands, right? Don't eat anymore. Because the Prophet (ﷺ) said that, informed me, I was informed that it is poisoned.
Now SubhanAllah, when that happened, Bishr, it was too late for him. He already ate the poisoned meat. And he didn't spit it out, even though when he ate it, it felt wrong.
So he ate at the same time as the Prophet (ﷺ), but he didn't spit it out, even though it felt wrong. Why? Out of adab with the Prophet (ﷺ).
You talk about that reverence that his father had for the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), it transfers. Out of adab with the Prophet (ﷺ). He didn't want to spit out meat in the presence of the Prophet (ﷺ).
So he said that, when I put it into my mouth, I didn't like to save my life after yours and I thought that you wouldn't have eaten it if there was something wrong with it.
So he kept it in his mouth and he swallowed the entire piece. Now as for the Prophet (ﷺ), the Prophet (ﷺ) called for the woman who prepared the lamb.
And the Prophet (ﷺ) asked her why she did that. And she said that because my father, my husband, my brother were all killed, right, they're in Khaybar.
And she said, if you were a false prophet, they said that if you are a false prophet that this will do away with you. And if you are a true prophet, then you will be spared from this.
And the Prophet (ﷺ), of course, was spared. Now the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), did he kill the woman? No. They said, Ya Rasulullah, should we kill her, the Prophet (ﷺ)? Let it go.
This is one of the things that should be mentioned, right? Bishr, on the other hand, Ibn al-Bara', SubhanAllah, from the effect of the poison, his skin started to turn like green.
And he was paralyzed from neck down and he passed away as a result of that poison, as a shaheed from that poison. Now the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) himself, he didn't die (ﷺ). (ﷺ).
That poison was meant to end someone instantly. But the Prophet (ﷺ) lived for at least three years after that, after Khaybar. And I mean the Prophet (ﷺ) went through Fath Mecca, Tabuk, the bravery and courage of Tabuk, Hajjat al-Wada'.
But the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) mentioned the pain of that poison even at the time of his death (ﷺ). So how did they reconcile this? That SubhanAllah, this was the Prophet (ﷺ), when he mentioned the effect
of it still remaining three years later, that this was the desire of the Prophet (ﷺ) to be counted as a shaheed as well, as a martyr as well. For the honor and the status of shahada, even though it didn't kill the Prophet (ﷺ)
the way that it was intended to kill the Prophet (ﷺ). As for Bishr (رضي الله عنه), Bishr didn't pass away. How long he passed away? They're conflicting narrations, but he died as a shaheed.
And some of the biographers say that the woman was basically she went through qisas for Bishr, the penalty for killing Bishr with that meat. As for the Prophet (ﷺ), he forgave her, but she went through the qisas
for Bishr and the qisas was carried out on her for what she did to Bishr ibn al-Bara' (رضي الله عنه).
Now I go back to his mom, Umm Bishr, and this is why I say that in the Barzakh series, we referenced Umm Bishr, but we didn't actually get to get into the story.
Umm Bishr was devastated at the death of her son, even though subhanAllah like you think about it, shaheed with the Prophet (ﷺ), his father was the first
person to take bay'ah with the Prophet (ﷺ), her son was the only person to die as a shaheed with the Prophet (ﷺ) in that particular setting and to have that status with the Prophet (ﷺ).
She is the one who came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and she asked the Prophet (ﷺ), "Hal yata'arafu al-mawta?" Do the dead people get to know one another?
Do the dead interact with one another? So the Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Taribat yadaki," may your hands be covered in dust like admonishing and he says of course, he said "an-nafsu al-tayyiba tayrun khudrun fi
al-jannah," the good soul is in the body of a green bird in Jannah and he said (ﷺ) that those birds "yata'arafuna fi ru'us al-shajar," those birds then come
together and they get to know one another on the branches of the trees of al-Jannah. Shuhada from generations get to know one another and they reunite and they talk to one another and they get to know one another.
"Fa innahum yata'arafuna," so of course they do indeed get to reflect with one another, reunite with one another and they get to meet shuhada from other generations. SubhanAllah you think about that and that is wallahi something like, it's not just the
people of Gaza that are being reunited as shuhada. Like you see the image of Salih and Anas and Hussam and these people together. Just because we don't see their bodies here, they get to know one another and they get
to interact with one another as shuhada over there. So the Prophet (ﷺ) is saying the same way that the birds will fly together and they'll get to know one another here. They come together and they speak and they interact with one another over there as well.
So Umm Bishr, when anyone was about to pass away from Banu Salimah, what would she do? She would go to that person that was passing away and she would say when you die, when
you see my son, pass my salam to him. Allahu Akbar. So anyone that she heard was about to pass away from her tribe, she goes and she visits them.
When you see my son, if you meet my son in the barzakh, if you meet my son amongst those people of Jannah, then convey my salam to him, then convey my salam to him, then convey my salam to him.
And she continued to do this, (رضي الله عنها), until eventually she herself passed away and the people came to her to do the same that she used to do. Pass my salam, pass my salam, pass my salam. Right?
(رضي الله عنهم أجمعين), may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala be pleased with them. Again subhanAllah, two people that you don't hear about much, but look at the legacy, look at the standing that they have with the Prophet (ﷺ) and look at the
position that they have with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). May Allah 'Azza wa Jall send His peace and blessings upon our beloved Prophet (ﷺ) and his family. May Allah be pleased with his companions. May Allah join us with them all in al-Firdaws al-A'la and allow us to get to know them
in bodies of green birds along with the shuhada of Gaza. Allahumma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran wa salamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
