Abu Dharr al-Ghifari

Abu Dharr al-Ghifari (may God be pleased with him), a man of the desert and one of the earliest Muslims — and the sharpest conscience in the tradition on wealth, whom a caliph exiled for saying it openly.

A man of the Banu Ghifar, a tribe of the Hijaz desert, he went to Mecca and became one of the first Muslims around 614 CE ¹. He called his own people to Islam, then lived in ascetic simplicity in Medina and later in Damascus.

There, the sources record, he publicly condemned the governors who gathered gold and silver, citing the Book (the Qur'an) on hoarding. When he was sent back to Medina he did not stop, so the caliph Uthman exiled him to al-Rabadha, where he died in 652 CE ¹.

Later generations — Sufis, social critics and contemporary writers on Islamic economics — all return to Abu Dharr: the man who asked from the start what the community owes to the poor.

He came to Mecca and asked about the man who claimed to be a prophet. He embraced Islam after the Prophet ﷺ presented it to him. Then he declared his testimony in the mosque, and the pagans beat him until he nearly died; al-Abbas rescued him. The next day he returned, and they did the same to him again ^{2 3}.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) entry gives his name as commonly Jundub b. Junada, with other names also recorded. Before his conversion he is said to have worshipped one God. When news of Muhammad reached him, he sent his brother to Mecca, and then went himself, and he became a believer at once. The article puts him among the first five believers, or even the fourth. He went to Medina after the battle of the Ditch (5/627), later lived in Syria, and was recalled by 'Uthman after a complaint from Mu'awiya; he died at al-Rabadha in 32/652-3 or 31. The article notes his humility and asceticism, and credits him with 281 traditions, of which al-Bukhari and Muslim gave thirty-one between them. ⁴

The Sheikh relates that Abu Dharr said, in the year 36 AH, that the time that had been roses without thorns had become thorns without roses (needs_source) ⁵.

The Sheikh narrates that Abu Dharr recited Sura al-Zalzala to a Bedouin until its end. The Bedouin wept and asked whether God would not hold them to account for the weight of an atom on the Day of Resurrection, and Abu Dharr said yes (needs_source: narration with no source given in the lecture). ^{6 7}

The Sheikh holds that knowledge is of benefit only when it is put into practice. ⁷

Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy recounts that Abu Dharr and Abu al-Darda bought a house outside Medina, and that the seller, a Christian woman, told him to purify his heart and pray wherever he wished (needs_source: the story as the sheikh tells it) ⁸.

The sheikh describes Abu Dharr's hot temper in a dispute held in the mosque, and mentions a remark alluding to the origins of one of the disputants, which the sheikh counts as an insult; the words are not repeated here (needs_source) ⁹. He recounts that the Prophet told Abu Dharr that he was weak in leadership, though not in character, because of his fiery temper (needs_source) ⁹. Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds, as his own opinion, that hot temper ruins an institution that is led by it, and that a preacher must not be hot-tempered (speaker's view, opinion) ^{9 10}.

The sheikh describes Abu Dharr's earlier life as including highway robbery, and says that no one is free from error except the Prophet and no one is sanctified (needs_source: the description is the sheikh's) ¹¹. He cites a saying that Abu Dharr walks alone, dies alone, and will be raised alone as a community (needs_source: the saying is paraphrased and its source is not given in this episode) ¹².