ʿUbayd Allah ibn Jahsh

ʿUbayd Allah ibn Jaḥsh (عُبَيْدُ ٱللَّهِ بْنُ جَحْشٍ), a cousin of the Prophet ﷺ, was one of the four who sought the religion of Ibrahim, and in that search he inclined toward Christianity. When the Prophet ﷺ began to preach, ʿUbayd Allah accepted Islam, and he married Umm Salamah (أُمُّ سَلَمَة). Together they migrated with the early Muslims to Abyssinia, seeking refuge.

But in that Christian land his heart turned, and he became an apostate, returning to Christianity, and he died upon it. Umm Salamah was left a widow in exile; she later returned, and the Prophet ﷺ married her, so that she became a Mother of the Believers.

His is the saddest of the four stories, a man who reached the truth and then let it go. And there is a lesson in it: ʿUbayd Allah turned back in the land of the Negus, where no Islamic law was enforced, and none harmed a hair of his head, for there is no worldly penalty upon such a one in a land not ruled by the Sharīʿah. Yet by Allah's decree his loss became a door of honour for the wife he left behind.