Khabbab ibn al-Aratt: The Ironsmith, the Burning Metal, and the Open Chest

Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt رضي الله عنه was an Arab ironsmith, a craftsman who forged swords for the people of Makkah. He was not Qurashī; he was from the tribe of Tamīm by origin, and had ended up as a purchased slave in Makkah. His owner was a woman: Umm Anmār.

When Khabbāb accepted Islām, Umm Anmār immediately organized a response. She gathered others and ordered them to beat him. Khabbāb narrates: "They surrounded me at my place of work, taunting and ridiculing me until I confessed that I was a Muslim. Then they beat me until I passed out and woke up bruised and bloodied."

But Umm Anmār was not done. She found a method of torture specific to Khabbāb's trade. He worked with iron, heating it, shaping it, making swords. She would wait until a piece of iron had been removed from the fire, still glowing with heat, and press it against the back of Khabbāb. Over and over.

❧Umar's testimony

Many years later, when Khabbāb visited ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb in Madīnah, ʿUmar was now Caliph, ʿUmar asked him to tell him about the torture he had suffered. Khabbāb said nothing. He simply turned around and removed his shirt.

ʿUmar looked at his back and said: "Wallāhi, I have never seen anything like this in my life."

❧The Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم duʿāʾ and its answer

Once, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم passed Khabbāb's workplace while the torture was happening. He raised his hands and said: "O Allah, help Khabbāb. Be on his side against his enemy."

A few days later, Umm Anmār developed a sudden illness. She began behaving like a rabid dog, crawling, panting, out of her senses. The doctors of Makkah were summoned. After examining her, they told her attendants: "The only treatment we can think of that might work is cauterization, burning the skin on her back and head."

It was done. She died from it.

Al-jazāʾu min jinsi al-ʿamal. She burned the back of Khabbāb; fire was turned upon her back. كَمَا تَدِينُ تُدَان, As you do, so shall it be done to you.

❧"For how long, O Messenger of Allah?"

There is a famous narration in Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was resting against the Kaʿbah in its shade, with some companions around him. Khabbāb came, and came with a question that broke open one of the deepest wisdoms of the Seerah.

He said: "Yā Rasūlallāh, ilā matā? For how long? How long can we bear this? Can you not make duʿāʾ to Allah to bring us relief? Can you not ask for the ʿizza and glory to come?"

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم sat up. And he said:

"Verily, the people before you were tortured far more severely than you. A saw would be placed on their heads and split them in half, and it would not weaken their faith. They would be scraped with iron combs that would remove their flesh down to the bone, and they would not leave their religion. Wallāhi, Allah will complete this matter. He will bring it to its fulfilment. A time will come when a woman will be able to travel alone from Ḥaḍramawt to Ṣanʿāʾ, fearing nothing but Allah and a wolf attacking her flock. But you are impatient." (Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī)

From the state of persecution and humiliation, in the shade of the Kaʿbah, with the torturers watching, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is describing a world of complete security. And he says it will happen. Not "might." Not "inshāʾAllāh one day." It will happen.

❧Teaching the Quran in secret

During this same Meccan period, while he was still subject to torture, Khabbāb was secretly going to the house of Fāṭimah bint al-Khaṭṭāb, Umar's sister, to teach her and her husband Saʿīd ibn Zayd the Quran. He did this voluntarily, in secret, as a slave with no freedom. His dedication to teaching was greater than his concern for his own safety.

It was on one of these teaching visits that ʿUmar came with a sword, intending to kill the Muslims he had heard about in his own family. The Quran was in the house. Khabbāb was there. And what happened next set in motion the conversion of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

❧His end

Khabbāb participated in every expedition of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and lived until the 37th year of the Hijra, dying in Kūfa. By then he had been given a generous stipend by the State, ʿUmar's policy was that the earliest Muslims received the highest pay, because their sacrifice was greatest. Khabbāb used his wealth for the poor: he kept a chest of money in his home, unlocked, with an open invitation, anyone in need could simply take what they needed, no questions asked.

When he lay on his deathbed, his children gathered around and said: "You have suffered so much and endured so much, why are you crying? You will meet the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and the companions who have gone before."

Khabbāb looked at the house around him and said: "I am not crying out of fear of death or fear of meeting Allah. I am crying about this house. My companions left this world without tasting any of its sweetness. And Allah has kept me here until I have built a house. What will I answer for it?"

Then they brought his burial shroud, a fine, large sheet, worthy of a wealthy man in Kūfa. He looked at it and began to weep again. He said: "Wallāhi, I remember Ḥamza, the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم uncle. He was the Sayyid al-Shuhadāʾ. And when he was martyred, they did not even find enough cloth for his kafan. If they covered his face, his legs were exposed. If they covered his legs, his face was exposed. And here I lie with this luxurious shroud. How will I face what awaits me?"

This is what it means to have lived through the beginning.