Safwan ibn Umayya

Safwan ibn Umayya ibn Khalaf ibn Wahb ibn Hudhafa ibn Jumah, Abu Wahb al-Jumahi. His mother was Safiyya bint Mu'ammar ibn Habib. His father, Umayya ibn Khalaf, was killed as an unbeliever at Badr ¹.

Ibn Hajar relays from Malik's Muwatta', on the authority of Ibn Shihab, that Safwan fled on the day Mecca was conquered. His wife Najiya bint al-Walid ibn al-Mughira had embraced Islam, and his cousin Umayr ibn Wahb obtained a safe-conduct for him from the Prophet, so he came back. He attended the battle of Hunayn before becoming a Muslim, and then he embraced Islam. The Prophet returned his wife to him after four months, as related by Ibn Ishaq from al-Zuhri ¹.

The Prophet borrowed his armour when he went out to Hunayn. Safwan said on the day of Hunayn: "For a man of Quraysh to lord it over me is dearer to me than for a man of Hawazin to do so" ¹. The Prophet gave him a generous share of the spoils. Safwan said: "I bear witness that only the soul of a prophet would be so generous with this," and he embraced Islam ¹. Muslim and al-Tirmidhi relate from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, on Safwan's authority: "By God, the Prophet gave me, and he was the most hateful of people to me; he kept giving until he became the most beloved of people to me" ¹.

Al-Zubayr relates that the divination arrows were in his charge in the pre-Islamic period ¹. Al-Tirmidhi relates from Ma'ruf ibn Kharrabudh that Safwan was one of the ten men in whom the nobility of the pre-Islamic period culminated, and that Islam came to them through ten clans ¹. Ibn Sa'd said: we have not heard that he went on campaign with the Prophet or after him. He was one of the men of pre-Islamic times who fed guests, and one of its eloquent men ¹.

He stayed with al-Abbas in Medina. Then the Prophet permitted him to return to Mecca, where he remained until he died ¹. Accounts differ on the date of his death. Some say it was at the killing of Uthman, some say he was buried when the people set out for the Battle of the Camel, and some say he lived until the beginning of Mu'awiya's caliphate. Al-Mada'ini said "the year one," and Khalifa said the year forty-two AH ¹.