Abdullah ibn Salam

The account

Al-Husayn ibn Salam was the rabbi of Banu Qaynuqa, a man who knew the awaited prophet's description the way he knew his own son. When the Messenger entered Madinah he went to look, and his verdict entered the sunan: "When I saw his face, I knew it was not the face of a liar." He tested him with questions whose answers only a prophet would know: the first sign of the Hour, the first meal of the people of Jannah, the resemblance of the child. Then he asked the Prophet ﷺ to conceal him and summon the Jewish leaders; they praised Abdullah as their best and their master, until he stepped out with the shahadah, and became in one minute their worst and the son of their worst. His shelter came in the verdict of revelation: "a witness from the Children of Israel testified to its like" (46:10), a verse read as his.

The Prophet renamed him Abdullah; the sunnah records for him what it records for barely anyone: a promise of Jannah by name while walking the earth, and a dream of a firm handhold interpreted by the Prophet as his dying upon the rope of Islam. He did, decades later, having spent his knowledge translating the two scriptures for the ummah of the last one.

The facts

• Verdict“Not the face of a liar”
• TestQuestions only a prophet answers
• Verse46:10, read of him
• PromiseJannah, by name

The narrations

Read beside it

The words

• الشَّهَادَةShahadahBelief
• المَدِينَةMadinahHistory
• الجَنَّةJannahBelief
• السُّنَّةSunnahBelief
• الإِسْلَامIslamBelief
• السُّنَنSunanHadith

On the Path

• 37Madinah Entry: City of Lightطلع البدر
• 52Al-Umam: Light across the Nationsالأمم