The Shepherd of Khaybar Who Never Prostrated

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

During the siege, a slave of the people of Khaybar came to the Prophet ﷺ, having heard of a man claiming prophethood. He asked what he was about; the Prophet ﷺ answered, I am a Prophet (أَنَا نَبِيّ), and explained Islam to him. The shepherd accepted Islam on the spot.

Then a problem: my master sent me to graze this flock, what do I do with it? The Prophet ﷺ told him he must return it, for it was an amānah, a trust, and it was not permissible for the Muslims to take it. He rubbed the heads of the sheep and told the man to release them at a certain place, and by the barakah of Allah the flock returned to its master on its own. The shaykh dwells on the meticulous honesty here: the Prophet ﷺ was at war with that very master, and had the fortress fallen, the flock would have been lawful spoils, but property must be acquired rightly, and a trust in a slave's hands was not the Prophet's ﷺ to receive.

The man, whose name we do not even know, returned to the army, fought, and was killed by a stray arrow. As they prepared his burial, a man owning nothing but the loincloth that covered him, the Prophet ﷺ turned his eyes away, and explained: his two ḥūr al-ʿīn have come to greet him. Here was a man who never once prostrated to Allah, he accepted Islam and died before a single prayer time arrived, and among the people of Paradise. The sīrah records a handful of such cases, at Uḥud and here, of those who believed and were martyred before ever praying.