Companions of the Prophet ﷺ

A Companion (sahabi) is anyone who met the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ believing in him, and died upon Islam. They were the first audience of the Quran, the transmitters of every hadith, the soldiers of Badr and Uhud, and — within a single generation of his ﷺ passing — the carriers of Islam from Arabia to Persia, Syria, Egypt, and beyond. The Quran itself declares Allah's pleasure with them:

Beyond the profiles above, these companions each shaped Islam's first century. The table gives each one's relationship to the Prophet ﷺ or place in the community, what they are best remembered for, and the battles or campaigns they took part in.

Fatimah (may Allah be pleased with her) was the youngest of the Prophet's ﷺ daughters by Khadijah, born in Makkah before the prophethood. Her childhood ran through the hardest Makkan years. While still a young girl she saw the leaders of Quraysh dump the entrails of a camel onto her father's ﷺ back as he prostrated at the Ka'bah; she came, pulled it off him, and turned on them with rebuke (Sahih al-Bukhari 240). She lost her mother in the Year of Grief, made the Hijrah, and in Madinah — in 2 AH, after Badr — married Ali ibn Abi Talib. Their household was poor: she ground grain by hand until the mill blistered her hands, and when she went to ask her father ﷺ for a servant, he taught her and Ali instead the tasbih before sleep — SubhanAllah thirty-three times, alhamdulillah thirty-three, Allahu akbar thirty-four — "that is better for you both than a servant" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3705; Sahih Muslim 2727). Through her sons al-Hasan and al-Husayn runs the Prophet's ﷺ line.

At Uhud, when the Prophet's ﷺ face was gashed and his tooth broken, it was Fatimah who washed the blood away while Ali poured the water; seeing that the bleeding would not stop, she burned a piece of matting and pressed the ash into the wound (Sahih al-Bukhari 243). Aisha later described how no one resembled the Prophet ﷺ more closely in bearing and manner of speech, and how, when Fatimah entered, he would rise to her, kiss her, and seat her in his place (Sunan Abi Dawud 5217; Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3872; graded sahih). He ﷺ counted her among the greatest women of all the worlds, alongside Maryam, Khadijah, and Asiyah (Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3878; graded sahih).

In his ﷺ final illness, Aisha watched him call Fatimah and whisper to her — and she wept; then he whispered to her again — and she laughed. Aisha asked her about it, but Fatimah would not disclose his secret while he lived. Only after his death did she reveal it: first he had told her he would die in that illness, so she wept; then, that she would be the first of his family to follow him, and that she was the leader of the women — so she laughed.

It happened exactly as he ﷺ said: Fatimah lived only six months after him (Sahih al-Bukhari 4240), dying in 11 AH — the first of his household to join him. May Allah be pleased with her.

Sumayyah bint Khayyat — the first martyr of Islam

An enslaved woman of Makkah, wife of Yasir and mother of Ammar, Sumayyah was among the very first to show her Islam openly — and among the first Quraysh set out to break. The sirah literature records the family staked out under the Makkan sun, and the Prophet ﷺ passing them with the words: "Patience, family of Yasir — your appointed place is Paradise." She refused to renounce her faith to the end, and Abu Jahl killed her with his spear: the first person of this ummah, man or woman, to die for Islam. The Quran's concession for one forced to utter words of disbelief while the heart is firm in faith (16:106) was revealed, the commentators record, concerning her son Ammar's ordeal.

Nusaybah bint Ka'b (Umm Umarah) — the shield of Uhud

An Ansari woman of Banu an-Najjar, Nusaybah was one of only two women present at the second pledge of Aqabah. At Uhud she went out with a waterskin to tend the wounded; when the tide of battle turned and men fled, she took up sword and shield and stood over the Prophet ﷺ, taking wound after wound. Ibn Hisham's sirah records the Prophet ﷺ saying of that day that he did not turn right or left without seeing her fighting in his defense. Long afterwards, aged and already bereaved, she marched with the army against Musaylimah at Yamamah — where her son Habib had been tortured to death for refusing to testify to the false prophet — and returned having lost a hand.

Asma bint Abi Bakr — Dhat an-Nitaqayn

The elder daughter of Abu Bakr and sister of Aisha, Asma earned her title on the night of the Hijrah: she prepared the food and water for the Prophet ﷺ and her father and, finding nothing to tie the provisions with, cut her waistband (nitaq) in two and tied the food-bag with one piece and the waterskin with the other — hence Dhat an-Nitaqayn, "she of the two waistbands" (Sahih al-Bukhari 2979). When her still-pagan mother later came to her seeking kindness, she put it to the Prophet ﷺ: "My mother has come to me and she desires to receive a reward from me, shall I keep good relations with her?" — and he answered: "Yes, keep good relation with her" (Sahih al-Bukhari 2620; Sahih Muslim 1003). Wife of az-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and mother of Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr — the first child born to the Emigrants in Madinah — she lived to nearly a hundred, dying in 73 AH only days after her son.

Umm Sulaym bint Milhan — footsteps in Paradise

An Ansari woman of Madinah and the mother of Anas ibn Malik, Umm Sulaym embraced Islam early. When Abu Talha — then still an idolater — proposed to her, she made his acceptance of Islam itself her dowry, and he believed (Sunan an-Nasa'i 3341; graded sahih). She gave her ten-year-old son Anas into the Prophet's ﷺ service for his ten years in Madinah. At Uhud, Anas saw her and Aisha hurrying back and forth with waterskins for the wounded (Sahih al-Bukhari 2880), and Sahih Muslim records her at Hunayn with a dagger at her waist (Sahih Muslim 1809). When her infant son died while Abu Talha was away, she composed herself, broke the news to her husband with gentle wisdom, and bore the loss with a patience the Prophet ﷺ prayed would be blessed — and it was, through their son Abdullah and his offspring (Sahih al-Bukhari 1301).