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Companions · First mu'adhdhin of Islam

بلال بن رباح

Bilal ibn Rabah

Tortured under the rock saying Ahad, Ahad; his footsteps were heard in Jannah before he died.

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Bilal ibn Rabah, an Abyssinian slave, believed early and paid immediately. Umayyah ibn Khalaf staked him on the burning sand under a boulder, demanding he curse the Prophet ﷺ; the whole theology of Islam compressed into his two-word answer: Ahad, Ahad. One. One. Abu Bakr bought him and freed him for Allah.

In Madinah the Prophet chose his voice for the first adhan, and for a decade Bilal called the ummah to prayer, stood at the Prophet's door, and carried his short spear before him at the Eids. On the day of the Opening the Prophet ordered him up onto the roof of the Kaaba itself, and the freed slave gave the adhan over the heads of the aristocracy that had tortured him. The Prophet ﷺ asked him once: "Tell me the deed you hope in most, for I heard the sound of your footsteps ahead of me in Jannah." He answered: I never purify myself, night or day, except that I pray with that purification what was written for me. After the Passing the adhan broke him; he could not finish it, and left for Sham as a soldier, giving one last adhan in his life that made Madinah weep.

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I heard the sound of your footsteps ahead of me in Jannah.

Bukhari 1149 · Muslim 2458

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