The last days and the final sermon

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Perhaps on the Saturday, he gathered a little strength and went out at Dhuhr for what would be his last prayer in congregation. The Ṣaḥābah had already begun behind Abū Bakr; a commotion rose as they made way for him, and Abū Bakr, hearing it, knew at once who it must be and stepped back. But the Prophet ﷺ motioned him to stay where he was, and Abū Bakr, in one of those rare cases where one disobeys out of obedience, insisted the Prophet ﷺ take the imam's place, and stood at his side. So the Prophet ﷺ led Dhuhr seated, and Abū Bakr stood beside him: what did the people see? Abū Bakr, yet who was the true imam? The Prophet ﷺ. Abū Bakr was inwardly following the Prophet ﷺ, whom none but he could see, while outwardly the people followed Abū Bakr. It is the most profound symbolism, a public announcement a day and a half before his death that Abū Bakr was the one they would take as their leader.

❧The final sermon

After the prayer he was lifted onto the minbar for the last public address of his life. He praised the Anṣār and charged the people, "I command you to take care of the Anṣār, for they have been my finest advisers and have fulfilled what was due of them", a subtle way, by telling one group to care for the other, of showing that the Muhājirūn would now lead, the way a father tells his son to look after the guests; the Anṣār had kept their pledge to protect him, their task complete, and were being honoured, not passed the next task of leading the Ummah. He commanded that the Arabian Peninsula be kept pure of all paganism, no idolatry, no idols worshipped in this special land, which is why to this day one may not enter the Ḥijāz, Mecca and Medina, except as a Muslim, and that the delegations still to come be met with the same hospitality he had shown. And of the last things he said, narrated by a number of Companions, was, "let none of you die except while thinking well of Allāh." The very last words of that final sermon were اَلصَّلَاةَ اَلصَّلَاةَ, "the prayer, the prayer," guard it, and, "fear Allāh regarding those under your authority, the weak of society and the slaves," for they may be weak in this world but will have their claim on the Day of Judgment.

❧Not a penny to his name

On the Sunday he asked, "how much money do I have?" ʿĀʾishah gathered the pouches in the house and drew out seven dirhams, silver, and cheap; realistically some twenty dollars, what we might spend on a single meal, and he turned them over in his hand and said, "what would I say to Allāh if I were to meet Him with these?" He had her give them all to the poor at once, then fainted; waking, "have you given it?"; again and again through the day, until she understood he would not rest until it was gone, and emptied the house of every coin. So the Prophet ﷺ died owning not a single penny. ʿĀʾishah said there was nothing in his house of gold or silver, only some barley in a small cup she kept eating from, blessed so that it never seemed to finish until the day she measured it, and then it soon ran out. His only possessions were his mule, a coat of armour pawned to a Jew of Medina against thirty measures of barley, and land he had given as waqf to the poor. The very night he died, ʿĀʾishah had no oil for her lamp and had to borrow a little from an Anṣārī neighbour, the house of the man to whom the wealth of Baḥrayn and Yemen and all Arabia flowed held nothing of value at all.

❧The last smile

On the Monday, the 12th of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, he was too weak at Fajr to lead, and Abū Bakr led while the Prophet ﷺ lay in ʿĀʾishah's room. He asked to sit up, and lifted the curtain between his room and the masjid, and the Ṣaḥābah, who had not seen him in two days, saw his face; Anas says they nearly broke their prayer for joy, and Abū Bakr stepped back thinking he would come out, but he motioned him on and let the curtain fall. That was the last they saw of his face: he looked upon his Ummah standing in rows behind Abū Bakr, praying Fajr, and his face beamed with joy, again the prayer, his Ummah at prayer, the very thing that made him happy at the end. And Fāṭimah, the last of his children still alive, every other, his parents, uncle, grandfather, all his children, having gone before her, Allāh testing him with the loss of them all, came to him and, seeing his pain, cried, "يَا كَرْبَ أَبَتَاهْ, how your suffering pains me, O my father." He said, "your father will suffer no more after today," and drew her close and whispered, and she wept: he told her Jibrīl had reviewed the Qurʾān with him twice that Ramaḍān, so his time had come. Then he called her again and whispered, and she smiled: that she would be the first of his family to follow him, and the mistress of the women of Jannah. She laughed for joy at being told she would die, because she did not wish to live without him ﷺ. (Fāṭimah followed him some six months later, the first of his household to meet him.)