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The Firsts (Sahaba Stories) | The Forerunners of Islam
The Four Abdullahs (ra) Every Muslim Should Know | Dr. Omar Suleiman
They were young companions who became encyclopedias of knowledge. Raised in the Prophet’s ﷺ presence, tested by the trials of their time—these are the four Abdullahs every Muslim should know.
Dr. Omar Suleiman introduces four of the most influential figures in early Islamic history: Abdullah ibn Abbas (ra), Abdullah ibn Umar (ra), Abdullah ibn Amr (ra), and Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr (ra). Though hundreds bore the name Abdullah, these four stood out, each with unique contributions, principles, and paths through the twists and turns of their era.
Get to know the names that shaped our tradition and stay tuned as we explore each one in depth in The Firsts series!
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Welcome back. Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulillah, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi, wa man wala. So we are getting
into an interesting set of biographies from the companions. And while we're going to cover these four companions, we're going to also cover on the side some of their siblings and others that come up in the story that don't have the deep biographies that we have for
them. But this next set of companions that we are covering are called al-abadila. They are the Abdullahs. And there's a very specific reason for that distinction. So let's talk
about this because if you were to actually number the Abdullahs from the seerah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, how many people named Abdullah exist in the seerah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam? There are over 300 or 400 of them. So it's not a
small number of people. And that is directly tied to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam saying, ahabbul asma'i ilallah, the most beloved of names to Allah, are Abdurrahman and Abdullah.
So you'll find that there are companions that named multiple kids Abdullah and multiple kids Abdurrahman. But these are the most beloved of names to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And
some of the greatest companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam are named Abdullah and known by that name Abdullah, or they're known by a kunya, they're known by being
Abu something, you know, but at the same time, they are still Abdullah. So let's talk about the Abdullahs. The ones that we will talk about in terms of al-abadila, when we say
the Abdullahs, we're talking about four people. We're talking about Abdullah ibn Abbas, we're talking about Abdullah ibn Umar, we're talking about Abdullah ibn Zubair, and we're talking about Abdullah ibn Amr. May Allah be pleased with them all. We're talking about them. And of
course, they are all the children of some of the most noble companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam as well. Before we get to that, who is the best Abdullah that is
mentioned in the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam? It's actually Abdullah ibn Uthman. Who is Abdullah ibn Uthman? Abu Bakr as-Siddiq. So Abu Bakr's actual name is Abdullah
ibn Uthman. But his nickname, his kunya is Abu Bakr. And his father's kunya is Abu Kuhafa. So his actual name is Abdullah ibn Uthman. Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, may Allah be pleased with him.
He's certainly the best of the companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and the best of those who are named Abdullah. Now there's another Abdullah, who if you are reading in the
books, and you see the name Abdullah in a narration of hadith or in tafsir, without Abdullah ibn anything else, just Abdullah said this, Abdullah said that, that is talking about
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (رضي الله عنه). Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (رضي الله عنه) is one of the early companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, one of the first people to embrace Islam. And he witnessed the descent of revelation of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wasallam, took the revelation fresh from the mouth of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, whoever wants to hear the Quran being recited fresh, ghaddan tariyan kama unzil, the way that it was revealed, the time that it was revealed, I mean,
like with the same freshness, listen to the qira'ah of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (رضي الله عنه). But he died early, right? So we don't have so much from him, or at least as much from him
that is equal to the position that he held in Islam, because he died around the time of Uthman preceding the fitna that would take place. He did not live through the civil wars that would take
place. He didn't live through the devastating chapters in history. And so because of the time that he passed away, we did not get from him. Of course, this is true for so many of the other
companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, we did not get from him all that we could have got, even though there's so much that's built from his tafsir, from his fiqh, from his understanding, and so much of him (رضي الله عنه) in the ahadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
So he holds his weight (رضي الله عنه) in every single way, may Allah be pleased with him. But when we come to the abadila, the four that we will cover, why do we look at them as the abadila?
Why are they spoken about as al-abadila? There are a few different reasons. Number one, they all lived long enough to where they lived through the devastating twists and turns in Islamic history,
and they contained encyclopedias of understanding of fiqh, of riwayat, of narrations from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, that they were able to apply in real time and teach to the next
generation in multiple regions. It's really the footprint, if you will, that they leave in the books of Islamic history because of the history that they witnessed and how they were witnessed
and interacted with in history. So that's the first thing to mention. The second thing to mention is that each one of them is distinguished in some way. So Ibn Abbas, distinguished by his love of
the Quran. He is tarjuman al-Quran, the interpreter of the Quran. Abdullah ibn Umar is distinguished by his love of the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As,
distinguished for his zuhd, for his asceticism. Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, distinguished for his courage. He became a khalifa, he became a leader, he became someone who actually governed
in Islamic history and who leads a strong revolt, right, that we will certainly cover when we get to his life. Some said that we never saw a man more knowledgeable than Ibn Abbas and we never saw a man
more pious than Ibn Umar. So these four men, they lived as contemporaries of one another, they interacted with each other, they taught multiple students and there is so much that's
built from them and they are amongst the companions that we take the most from in any Islamic science. So in any given Islamic science you have to go through these four men in some
regard. Imam Ibn al-Qayyim (رحمه الله) also then mentions that they are amongst or at least some of them are amongst those who gave the most of fatawa. So he divides the companions of the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in terms of their iftaā, in terms of the level of fatwa that they gave into a few categories. Keep in mind here there are tens of thousands of sahaba but they weren't
all muftis, only a handful of them were looked at as the muftis amongst the companions themselves. Now all of them are greater than us right but amongst themselves they had ranks in regards to
their knowledge. So Ibn al-Qayyim (رحمه الله) he said that the companions from which the fatawa were learned were 30 something between men and women and he mentions the sahaba that were most
frequent, that had the largest share of fatawa and he says that they were seven.
Umar ibn al-Khattab, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, Aisha Umm al-Mu'minin, Zayd ibn Thabit, Abdullah ibn Abbas and Abdullah ibn Umar.
Again he says that the seven of the companions who were the most in their fatawa were Umar, Ali, Aisha, Zayd, Zayd ibn Thabit that is and then Abdullah ibn Mas'ud,
Abdullah ibn Abbas and Abdullah ibn Umar. Two of the abadila that we will cover and they'll be the first two that we cover were of the most frequent in terms of fatawa from them and as Ibn Hazm said
if we were to collect the fatawa given by each of them separately then that's going to you know constitute volumes of books just their fatawa those seven that we mentioned may Allah be pleased with
them all and then he mentioned those who gave fatwa moderately and he mentions Abu Bakr and Umm Salamah
and Anas ibn Malik and Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, Abu Huraira, Uthman ibn Affan, Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As, Abdullah ibn al-Zubair, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Salman al-Farisi, Jabir ibn Abdullah and Mu'adh ibn Jabal.
So these 13 companions right are in a second tier in terms of the amount of fatawa that they gave not in terms of rank because obviously Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) is greater than the
first seven that we mentioned right but in terms of the amount of fatawa that they actually gave and then after them the rest of the companions right you'll find a handful of fatawa here or
there a handful of narrations and it was usually fiqh that was related to a very specific issue that they faced at the time. The last thing that I'll say here you know there's the role in hadith
narration they are all hadith narrators and narrated not just from the Prophet (ﷺ) but narrated from other companions as well right but the last thing that I'll mention is that all four of their lives intersected as we said with the fitan with the trials and tribulations with
the politics of the time and all four of them had different approaches somewhat different approaches to the politics of the time but all of them based in principle which is actually incredible because
it shows you that there can be diversity that is also principled there can be principled difference of opinion none of them were quote-unquote sellouts none of them were traitors none of them
undermined the ummah of the Prophet (ﷺ) but all four of them dealt with devastating circumstances with slightly different approaches amongst themselves and there's something so enriching
about how they interacted with each other how they deliberated amongst each other as to how to deal with the turmoil that was then that then engulfing the ummah of Muhammad (ﷺ) where you had war
and civil strife and confusion and assassinations and different political autonomies that were existing in the ummah of the Prophet (ﷺ) and so we can learn so much from all four of them
and inshallah ta'ala I look forward to going on this journey with you in the next section that we do of the first again we'll cover Ibn Abbas, Abdullah ibn Abbas but we'll also sort of branch out and talk about some of his brothers we'll cover Abdullah ibn Umar we'll cover Abdullah
ibn Zubair and Abdullah ibn Amr and in the process we might break out for some of these shorter sessions but I hope inshallah ta'ala this introduction gives you a little bit into what we're going to be covering and I look forward to being with you on this next set of journeys
within the journey of the first. Jazakumullah khairan.

























































































































































































