6 Companions of the Prophet who started with nothing

Bilal ibn Rabah was an Abyssinian slave of Umayya ibn Khalaf. When he became a Muslim his master took him out into the midday heat and laid a rock on his chest to make him renounce, and he answered “Ahad, Ahad” (One, One). Abu Bakr bought and freed him.^[2] The price Abu Bakr paid is given differently in the sources, and what stays constant is that a free man of Quraysh paid for the freedom of a slave who had no standing.

The Prophet appointed him the first muʾadhdhin, the one who gives the call to prayer. The choice is often noted by later scholars, since Bilal had a clear voice and a place of trust in the early community, and the call he gave became the model for every mosque. After the conquest of Mecca he climbed the Kaaba to call.

The point of the story is the order of rank it reverses. In Mecca a man of his birth had no voice in public, and in the new community his was the voice that summoned everyone else, including the chiefs of Quraysh.

Ammar ibn Yasir and his parents were tortured in Mecca. His mother Sumayya was killed by Abu Jahl and is counted the first martyr of Islam.^[3] The Prophet passed them as they were being tortured and said, “Be patient, family of Yasir, for your promised place is Paradise.”^[4] The wording differs between versions of the report.

Ammar was forced to say words of disbelief under torture while his heart stayed firm, and the Quran’s concession for such compulsion was revealed about the case.^[5] The commentators report that when Ammar came to the Prophet in distress, the Prophet asked how he found his heart, and he said it was settled in faith.

The family had no tribe to protect them. Ammar and his parents were allies of a Meccan clan, not members of it, and Quraysh could hurt them without fear of reprisal. Their stand is remembered because they had so little to protect them and still held to it.

Salman al-Farisi is said to have left Persia searching for the truth, passed through Christian teachers, and ended in Medina, where he met the Prophet. He had been sold into slavery on the way. The Prophet helped him buy his freedom.^[6] The long account of his journey comes from Salman himself as Ibn Ishaq and other early writers report it, and historians treat the details with some caution while accepting the outline.

He is credited with suggesting the trench at the battle of 627 to defend Medina, a method of defence the Arabs had not used. When the Companions argued over whether he was of the Ansar or the Muhajirun, the Prophet said, “Salman is one of us, the people of the house.”^[7] Some scholars regard the chains of this report as weak, though the account of his place in the community is widely accepted.

A man from far outside Arabia, with no tribe and no family in Medina, came to be counted among the household of the Prophet. The sources use that to show how fully the new community was open to outsiders.

Abu Dharr al-Ghifari came from a tribe known for highway robbery and became one of the earliest believers. He was known for austerity and blunt warnings to the wealthy about hoarding.^[8] He was among the first to declare his faith openly in Mecca and was beaten for it, and he later returned to his people to call them to Islam.

The Quran’s verse on those who “hoard gold and silver and do not spend it in the way of God” is linked to his remarks.^[9] Al-Bukhari records that he disagreed with Muʿāwiya in Syria over whether the verse applied to Muslims as well as to the People of the Book, and that the caliph ʿUthmān asked him to come back to Medina. He settled at al-Rabadha, outside the city, and died there in exile in the desert in about 652.

Scholars read his stance differently. Most held that wealth on which zakah has been paid is not hoarded, and his view was stricter. His stern line is remembered as one voice in the early community, and it came from a man who owned almost nothing himself.

Abu Hurayra was poor and spent his days with the Prophet, in the group called the people of the bench. He narrated more hadith than any other Companion, over five thousand.^[10] He explained why: the emigrants were busy in the markets and the Ansar with their land, and he stayed to fill his stomach and to listen.^[11]

His name means “father of the kitten”, a nickname that the sources say he earned from his habit of carrying a small cat. He accepted Islam only a few years before the Prophet died, so his long attendance covered a short span, and the early scholars debated how he could have heard so much. Their answer was that he did little else, and that he also took reports from other Companions.

The people of the bench were men with no homes or livelihood, who slept in a corner of the mosque at Medina and lived on what others brought them. A hadith literature that rests so heavily on one of them is a sign of whose company the Prophet kept.

Abdul Rahman ibn Awf emigrated to Medina without possessions. His new brother Sa’d ibn al-Rabi’ offered him half his property, and offered to divorce one of his wives so that Abdul Rahman could marry her after her waiting period. Abdul Rahman answered, “May God bless you in your family and wealth. Show me the market.”^[12]

He became one of the richest of the Companions, and spent his wealth on the cause, giving caravans of goods to the poor of Medina. The early sources report large gifts at several points, though the figures vary and are best taken as general indications. He was also counted among the ten whom the Prophet is reported to have named as promised Paradise.

The story of the market sets him apart from the others in this list. He went from nothing to wealth by trade, and the sources praise that path as honourable. He refused a gift he had not earned and asked only for a place to work.