The Private Dawah: The First Muslims
storyThe first phase of the Dawah was not public. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم moved carefully, privately, speaking only to those who were closest to him. The Arabic word used is mukhtafī, he was operating in a concealed or contained manner, not yet confronting Quraysh openly.
❧The first converts
The first to believe was Khadijah رضي الله عنها, who believed before she even knew what she was believing in. When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم came back trembling from the cave and told her what had happened, she said what she said before the revelation was explained, before the Sharīʿah existed, before there was a prayer to pray or a testimony to recite. She believed because of who she knew him to be: "Allah will never humiliate you." That is the kind of faith that precedes and surpasses theology.
The second to believe was Waraqah ibn Nawfal رضي الله عنه, and this is a name that many people skip over in their rush to the third. Waraqah affirmed the prophethood without any Shahādah to say, because there was no Shahādah yet. He believed by saying: "You are a Prophet of Allah. And what you have seen is the Nāmūs, the Keeper of Secrets, who was sent to Mūsā." That affirmation, that sincerity, was his conversion. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم later said he had seen Waraqah in a vision wearing beautiful white garments in Jannah. He was the first member of the Ummah of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم to enter Paradise. He died without ever praying a prayer, there was no prayer yet to pray, but he died as a believer.
The third convert is a matter of scholarly discussion, with three names put forward. The easiest and most accurate resolution: ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib رضي الله عنه was the first child to believe; Zayd ibn Ḥārithah رضي الله عنه was the first freed servant to believe; Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq رضي الله عنه was the first free adult man to believe. All three are "first", in their respective categories. Allah knows who was first in absolute terms, but this reconciliation honours all three.
❧Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم described Abū Bakr's conversion in a moment of emotion, in Madīnah, when he said to ʿUmar: "There was not a single person to whom I presented Islām except that he paused and hesitated, thinking, 'Should I or should I not?', except for Abū Bakr. When I presented it to him, he did not hesitate for a moment." And so his title became: al-Ṣiddīq, the one who confirms immediately and without doubt.
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "Allah has taken me as a Khalīl, a sincere intimate friend. Therefore I cannot have any other Khalīl among mankind. But if I were to choose a Khalīl, I would have chosen Abū Bakr." (Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī). Allah called him Thāniya ithnayn, "the second of the two", in Sūrat al-Tawbah (9:40), when describing the moment in the cave of Thawr. By pronoun, not by name, but unmistakably, Allah honoured him in the Quran. He is second to none except the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم himself. The consensus of Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jamāʿah is that he is the best of all the companions.
❧The four converts through Abū Bakr
As soon as Abū Bakr accepted Islām, he went to his closest circle. The next four converts all came to Islām through his hands:
Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ رضي الله عنه, the youngest of them, about sixteen years old. When he left idol worship, his mother, trying to bring him back, threatened to stop eating and drinking until he returned to the old religion. She starved herself. She weakened. She brought herself to the edge of death in front of him. Saʿd wept. And then, in a moment, he steeled himself and said: "Wallāhi, O my mother, if you had a hundred souls and I had to watch every one of them leave you, I would still not give up this religion." And when she saw that immovable resolve, she broke her fast. Allah then revealed: وَإِن جَاهَدَاكَ عَلَىٰ أَن تُشْرِكَ بِي مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِ عِلْمٌ فَلَا تُطِعْهُمَا وَصَاحِبْهُمَا فِي الدُّنْيَا مَعْرُوفًا, "If they press you to associate with Me what you have no knowledge of, do not obey them, but accompany them in this world with kindness." (Luqmān 31:15). This verse came down for Saʿd. He was also the first person ever to shoot an arrow in the path of Islām. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said to him, and said this to no one else: فِدَاكَ أَبِي وَأُمِّي, "May my father and mother be given as your ransom." He was chosen by ʿUmar as one of the six members of the Shūrā to decide the caliphate after him.
ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān رضي الله عنه, the third caliph of Islām, whose biographies require volumes. He was among those Abū Bakr brought to Islām in these early weeks. He was later also selected in ʿUmar's Shūrā.
al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām رضي الله عنه, the cousin of both the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and ʿAlī, through his mother Ṣafiyyah bint ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "Every Prophet has been given a special Ḥawārī, a devoted disciple. And my Ḥawārī is al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām." He was the father of ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Zubayr.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf رضي الله عنه, the elder of these four, already in his early thirties. He is the famous merchant of the companions. When he arrived in Madīnah after the Hijra, he had nothing but the clothes on his back, Quraysh had taken everything. An Anṣārī offered him half his property, one of his two gardens, and offered to divorce one of his two wives for him. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said: "May Allah bless you. Just tell me where the marketplace is." He took a small portion of food as his starting capital, went to the market, and within a short time had earned enough to get married and set himself up again. His recovery was so swift and his business so blessed that he became one of the wealthiest men in Madīnah.
❧The conversion of Ibn Masʿūd
ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه was not of the elite noblemen of Quraysh. He was a servant, a shepherd hired by ʿUqba ibn Abī Muʿayṭ, one of the chief enemies of Islām. He was neither a slave nor a nobleman; he was somewhere in between.
He tells his own story: "One day I was out in the fields with my flock when I saw two men coming in the distance. I did not recognize them." They came and asked: "Oh young man, can you give us some of your milk?" His answer reveals everything about the man he would become: "I'm sorry, I cannot. These animals are not mine. I don't have the right to give you what belongs to someone else." He would not give what was not his. Even when strangers were thirsty.
So the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "Show me one of the she-goats that has dried up, one that no longer produces milk." Ibn Masʿūd pointed to one. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم took the goat, placed his hand on its udder, and made duʿāʾ. And in front of Ibn Masʿūd's eyes, the udder filled. They milked it and drank it. He was astonished: "Who are you?" They told him. He converted on the spot and became the sixth Muslim.
Years later, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said of him: "If you want to know how to recite the Quran, recite it the way Ibn Masʿūd does." Ibn Masʿūd himself said: "I learnt more than seventy sūrahs, more than two-thirds of the Quran, directly from the mouth of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم."
❧The first of the slave converts
After these came the converts from among those who had no tribal protection: Bilāl ibn Abī Rabāḥ رضي الله عنه, Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt رضي الله عنه, and the family of Yasir, Yasir, his wife Sumayyah, and their son ʿAmmār رضي الله عنهم أجمعين. Sumayyah bint Khayyāṭ was the first martyr of Islām, she was killed by Abū Jahl for refusing to renounce her faith. Her family was the first family to give blood for this religion.
❧Amr ibn ʿAbasa: the one who waited fifteen years
ʿAmr ibn ʿAbasa al-Sulamī رضي الله عنه tells his own story in the first person. "In the days of Jāhiliyyah, I already knew that idol worship was wrong. I knew my people were on misguidance and I did not worship idols." He was a man who had reached the truth through his own reasoning, one of those rare souls whose fiṭrah was intact.
Then news reached him: someone in Makkah is saying the same thing, that the idols are false and only Allah deserves worship. ʿAmr travelled from his home in search of this man. He found him. And he found him mukhtafī, operating in a contained, private way, not yet confronting Quraysh publicly. He engaged him gently and asked: "What are you?", not "who are you" but "what are you?"
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم replied: أَنَا نَبِيٌّ, "I am a Prophet."
ʿAmr asked: "What is a Prophet?"
"One whom Allah has sent, arsalanī Allāh."
"With what?"
"To uphold the ties of kinship. To be good to one another. And to break all idols. That only Allah be worshipped."
No Ṣalāh yet. No Zakāh, no Ḥajj. The entire message at that moment was: be good to each other and worship Allah alone. That is Islām at its foundation.
ʿAmr said: "Who has followed you?" The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "One free man and one slave." This was early, Abu Bakr and Bilāl. ʿAmr wanted to stay and convert. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "You cannot do this now. Don't you see my situation? I am concealed even from my own people. You are not Qurashī, you have no protection here. Go back to your people." And then came the sentence that tells us everything about the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم certainty: "And when you hear that I have been victorious over my people, then come back to me."
In the first year of the Dawah. Before a single battle. Before the Hijra. Before the Anṣār. He already knew that Allah would make him victorious.
ʿAmr went back to Yemen. He waited. He waited through years of persecution, through the boycott, through the death of Khadijah and Abū Ṭālib, through the Hijra. When he heard that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم had arrived in Madīnah, he set out. He walked into the Masjid of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and said: "Yā RasūlAllāh, hal ʿaraftanī? Do you recognize me?"
At least fifteen years had passed. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم looked at him and said: "Yes. You are the one who came to me in Makkah."
He accepted Islām, became one of the Muhājirūn, and spent the rest of his life in the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم company. The man who came when no one was coming, and waited when there was nothing yet to wait for.