Safwan ibn Umayyah
صَفْوَانُ بْنُ أُمَيَّةَṢafwān ibn Umayyah
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Ṣafwān ibn Umayyah ibn Khalaf al-Jumaḥī was a leading figure of the Quraysh and the son of Umayyah ibn Khalaf, who was one of the most prominent enemies of the Prophet ﷺ killed at Badr. When the news of the Badr defeat arrived in Makkah with al-Ḥayṣamān, Ṣafwān was sitting near the Ḥijr of the Kaʿbah. Hearing the names being listed, he refused to believe it. He devised a clever test: 'Ask this man where Ṣafwān ibn Umayyah is', knowing he himself was alive and sitting in plain sight. He expected a deranged man to name him dead. Instead, al-Ḥayṣamān pointed directly at him and said he was right there, then stated that he had seen Ṣafwān's father and brother killed. This removed all doubt.
Ṣafwān subsequently became one of the most significant figures in the political drama of the years following Badr, including playing roles in the period leading to Uḥud and the eventual Conquest of Makkah. He was one of the last Qurayshī leaders to accept Islām, receiving a personal guarantee from the Prophet ﷺ and becoming a Muslim after the Conquest of Makkah. He is listed among the Muʾallafat Qulūbuhum (those whose hearts were to be won over through generosity).
His father Umayyah ibn Khalaf, killed at Badr by Bilāl ibn Rabāḥ and others, had been one of the most vicious tormentors of enslaved Muslims in Makkah. The personal history between Ṣafwān and Bilāl, whose master was Umayyah, is one of the most striking personal reconciliations of the Seerah.
Significance
Tested al-Haysaman's sanity when Badr news arrived, confirming the catastrophe; later received personal amnesty from the Prophet at the Conquest of Makkah and accepted Islam
Stories
The News of Badr Reaches Makkah: Al-Haysaman's Return and Safwan's Test
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Read the full story →The Assassination Attempt of Umayr ibn Wahb and His Conversion
historical**Speaker Introduction** Dr. Yasir Qadhi opens by noting that the story of ʿUmayr ibn Wahb is one of the most remarkable and emotionally compelling c…
Read the full story →The Sariyya of Qarada, Interception of the Quraysh Caravan
historical**The Quraysh Dilemma** After Badr, the Quraysh faced an existential economic crisis. Their two annual caravans, the rihla of winter and summer, were…
Read the full story →Quraysh Preparations for the Battle of Uhud
historical**The Four Reasons for Uhud** Dr. Yasir Qadhi opens by distinguishing Uḥud from Badr: Badr was a reconnaissance mission that escalated; Uḥud was the…
Read the full story →Ma'bad al-Khuza'i and the Quraysh's Retreat
battleShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: As related in al-Wāqidī's Maghāzī, the Qurayshi army, once regrouped on the road home, fell into a heated debate over wh…
Read the full story →The Martyrdom of Khubayb and Zayd in Makkah
companion biographyShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: Khubayb ibn ʿAdī and Zayd ibn al-Dathinnah were taken to Mecca and sold to families who each held a personal blood griev…
Read the full story →The Conversion of Khalid ibn al-Walid
companion biographyShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: **A COMMANDER WHO SENSED SOMETHING BEYOND HIM** Khālid ibn al-Walīd, son of Quraysh's chief poet al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīr…
Read the full story →The Breach of al-Hudaybiyyah: The Raid on Khuzaʿah
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: One clause of the Treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyyah, two years earlier, let either side, Quraysh or the Muslims, take any tribe i…
Read the full story →The Morning of the Conquest
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: On the morning of the 20th of Ramaḍān, 8 AH, the people of Mecca still did not know an army of ten thousand was an hour…
Read the full story →The Sermon at the Door and the General Amnesty
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: With the House cleansed and its doors thrown open, the Prophet ﷺ stood on the steps of the Kaʿbah and faced the crowd, m…
Read the full story →The Conversion of Safwan ibn Umayyah
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: Ṣafwān ibn Umayyah, son of Umayyah ibn Khalaf, Bilāl's old tormentor, and one of the Quraysh who had tried to fight at t…
Read the full story →Thaqif and Hawazin Gather for Hunayn
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: As the Prophet ﷺ camped in Mecca, word came that Thaqīf, the tribe of Ṭāʾif, whose idol was al-Lāt, was raising an army.…
Read the full story →Hunayn: The Ambush and the Rally
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: At twelve thousand, never so many before, a Muslim boasted, "How can we be beaten today?" The Prophet ﷺ rebuked it, tell…
Read the full story →The Distribution at Ji'rana and the Ansar
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: The camp-spoils were the ruler's to dispose of, and the Prophet ﷺ gave staggering gifts, a hundred camels at a time, a f…
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