al-Arqam ibn Abi al-Arqam

Al-Arqam ibn Abi al-Arqam al-Makhzumi al-Qurashi, counted in The Sealed Nectar among the earliest Muslims of the secret preaching at Mecca. ^{1 2}

The book mentions him together with Abu Salama ibn Abd al-Asad, calling both of them Makhzumis, among those who followed the first vanguard of the early Muslims. ^{1 2} He is of Banu Makhzum. ¹ The book returns to his house, where the Muslims gathered, in a later chapter.

This chapter of the book says nothing of him beyond his early Islam. The rest of his reports are completed in their own places in the book and in other sources.

Al-Arqam ibn Abi al-Arqam, with the kunya Abu 'Abd Allah, belonged to the Makhzum clan of Mecca. His father was 'Abd Manaf, and his mother, usually said to be of Khuza'a, is named variously in the sources. He died in 53/673 or 55/675, at over eighty, so he was probably born about 594. He became a Muslim very young, and one source counts him the seventh of the converts, another the twelfth. ³

About the year 614 he offered Muhammad the use of his house on the hill of al-Safa, and it was the centre of the new community until the conversion of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him). Ibn Sa'd often says that conversions and other events happened while Muhammad was in al-Arqam's house, or before he entered it; Ibn Hisham is silent on the point. Al-Arqam migrated to Medina with Muhammad and was at Badr and the other chief expeditions, but he was not prominent in any way. The house, which contained a place of worship, stayed in the family until the caliph al-Mansur bought it. It then passed to al-Khayzuran, mother of Harun al-Rashid, and came to be known as the house of al-Khayzuran. ³