Abu Salamah ibn Abd al-Asad
أَبُو سَلَمَة بْن عَبْد الْأَسَدAbū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Asad
Biography
The first companion to emigrate to Madinah, and one of the few Sahaba who made both Hijras (Abyssinia and Madinah). Husband of Umm Salamah (who would later become a wife of the Prophet ﷺ). He and Umm Salamah were among those who emigrated to Abyssinia during the first Hijra, then returned to Makkah when news spread (mistakenly) that the Quraysh had accepted Islam. When the second Hijra to Madinah became possible, Abu Salamah was the first to go, openly, not secretly. The Quraysh seized this opportunity: they retained Umm Salamah (a Qurashiyyah, so "theirs"), while his tribe took back his infant son (a tug-of-war so violent the child's arm was dislocated). He was forced to travel to Madinah alone. After more than sixteen months, Umm Salamah was eventually released by her kin and reunited with her son, making her way to Madinah with the help of the honorable non-Muslim Uthmān ibn Ṭalḥa. Abu Salamah died from wounds sustained at the Battle of Uḥud, after which the Prophet ﷺ married Umm Salamah.
Significance
First companion to emigrate to Madinah; husband of Umm Salamah; made both the Hijra to Abyssinia and to Madinah
Stories
The First Hijra: Fifteen Muslims Emigrate to Abyssinia
storyAfter a year and a half of public Dawah, more than a year of open torture, of camel entrails, of burning iron, of choking, of boulder and desert heat,…
Read the full story →The Return from Abyssinia and the Second Hijra of Eighty
storyThe first batch of Abyssinian emigrants, twelve men and five women, seventeen in total, returned to Mecca on a false rumor that Quraysh had accepted I…
Read the full story →Umm Salamah's Hijrah: Sixteen Months of Separation
storyAbu Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Asad was the first companion to emigrate to Madinah. He went openly, loading his wife Umm Salamah and their infant son onto a…
Read the full story →