Companions · The meticulous follower
عبد الله بن عمر
Abdullah ibn Umar
“What a good man Abdullah would be, if he prayed at night.” He never left the night prayer again.
The account
Son of al-Faruq, Ibn Umar was rejected at Badr and Uhud for youth and accepted at the Trench at fifteen. As a young man he dreamed of two angels showing him the Fire and a rescuer saying you will not be harmed; his sister Hafsah relayed it, and the Prophet ﷺ answered with the sentence that governed the rest of his life: "What a good man Abdullah is, if only he prayed at night." From that day he barely slept the last third.
He became the ummah's specialist in following: he prayed where the Prophet prayed, halted his mount where the Prophet's halted, and transmitted the pilgrim's rites step for step. In the fitnah he sheathed his sword entirely and became the reference both armies trusted; offered the caliphate more than once, he refused it unless every Muslim agreed, which is to say he refused it. He gave away fortunes of Umar's estate while patching his own garment, freed slaves by the thousand, and narrated with a terror of misquoting the Prophet that made his precision proverbial. He died in Makkah past eighty, the last of the elder school, having fulfilled one sentence for sixty years.
The facts
- AdmittedThe Trench, at 15
- The sentence“…if he prayed at night”
- SpecialtyExact following (ittiba')
- FitnahSword sheathed entirely
The narrations
What a good man Abdullah is, if only he prayed at night. After that he slept only a little at night.
Bukhari 1122 · Muslim 2479
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The words
Lights that name it
On the Path
- 36Quba: First Masjidمسجد قباء
- 38Badr: 313 vs 1000بدر
- 39Uhud: Archers on the Hillأحد
- 40Khandaq: The Trenchالخندق
People beside it
- Umar ibn al-KhattabAl-Faruq · Second caliphعمر بن الخطاب
- Hafsah bint UmarUmm al-Mu'minin · Keeper of the mushafحفصة بنت عمر
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