Deen

The People Around Muhammad ﷺ: Companions, Wives and Family

Who the Companions were and how they are remembered, with 131 detailed profiles of his wives, children, family and Companions: their families, work, lives, what they did and how they related to the Prophet ﷺ.

Mohammad Siddiqui

— 362 min read
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Rows of simple unmarked graves at Jannat al-Baqi cemetery in Medina under a bright cloudy sky, with the minarets of the Prophet's Mosque in the distance
Photo: Saleh Al Hussain, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Deen · The Prophet · The people around him

Nobody meets the Prophet ﷺ alone in the sources. He is always with someone: a wife who reassures him, an uncle who shelters him, a friend who shares his hiding place, a boy who serves him for ten years, a woman who stands between him and the swords at Uḥud. Muslims call these people the Companions, the ṣaḥāba. Almost everything later generations know about him reached them through their eyes and memories. This page is about them.

It is the companion piece to Muhammad ﷺ: A Life. The first half is an introduction: who counts as a Companion, how many there were, how Sunni and Shia Muslims rank and remember them, who the Emigrants and Helpers were, what the women around him did, how people earned a living, who wrote down the revelation and who passed on the most hadith, where they went after his death and where they lie buried, and which books preserve their lives. The second half is an explorer of 131 individual biographies that you can search and filter. Hadith are linked to sunnah.com with their gradings and Qur'an verses to quran.com.

The short version

  1. In the definition most Sunni hadith scholars use, a Companion is anyone who met the Prophet ﷺ as a believer and died a Muslim. Some legal theorists wanted more: long company and learning at his side.
  2. Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī was reported as saying that more than 100,000 people saw him, and in one version 114,000. The great dictionaries name far fewer: about 3,500 in Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr's al-Istīʿāb, some 7,500 in Ibn al-Athīr's Usd al-ghāba, and around 12,000 entries in Ibn Ḥajar's al-Iṣāba, many of them doubtful and flagged as such.
  3. Sunni tradition ranks them, beginning with the four caliphs and the ten promised Paradise, then the people of Badr and of the pledge under the tree, and treats all of them as trustworthy transmitters (the doctrine of ʿadāla).
  4. Twelver Shia scholars judge Companions one by one by their conduct, above all their loyalty to ʿAlī after the Prophet's death, and honour a small circle led by Salmān, Abū Dharr, al-Miqdād and ʿAmmār. Zaydī and Ibāḍī positions sit between and beside these.
  5. They were traders, date farmers, smiths, shepherds, scribes and very poor men who slept in the mosque. Women among them traded, taught, nursed the wounded, fought and passed on a large share of what we know.
  6. After 632 they scattered across Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and beyond. Their graves run from al-Baqīʿ in Medina to Constantinople, Cyprus and Samarqand. The civil wars that divided some of them are remembered very differently by Sunni and Shia Muslims.

Contents

  1. Who counts as a Companion
  2. How many were there?
  3. How they are ranked and judged
  4. The Emigrants and the Helpers
  5. The women around the Prophet
  6. Work and livelihoods
  7. Scribes and the great narrators
  8. After him: travels, graves and the fitna
  9. The books that remember them
  10. Meet them one by one
  11. How to use this page
  12. Glossary
  13. Sources

Who counts as a Companion

The Arabic word ṣāḥib means a companion or associate, and in ordinary speech it can be used of someone you spent an afternoon with as easily as of a lifelong friend. Linguistically, then, even brief company could qualify, and the classical definitions all start from that fact.1 The question for Muslim scholars was how much contact with the Prophet ﷺ was needed before a person's reports about him could be treated as first-hand, and before the praise the Qur'an and hadith give his followers could be applied to them.

Al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) gave his answer in a chapter heading rather than a hadith. At the start of the book on the virtues of the Companions in his Ṣaḥīḥ he writes that any Muslim who kept company with the Prophet ﷺ, or merely saw him, is one of his Companions.2 The first report he places under that heading, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, imagines armies of the future asking whether anyone among them had accompanied the Prophet, then whether anyone had accompanied someone who had.2 Modern reference works use the same broad sense: any Muslim alive in the Prophet's lifetime who saw him, however briefly.3 Six centuries after al-Bukhārī, Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449) set out what he called the soundest definition he had found: a Companion is one who met the Prophet ﷺ while believing in him and died a Muslim.4 "Met" is chosen deliberately. He explains that it covers someone who saw the Prophet ﷺ without ever sitting with him, and someone who could not see him because of an impediment such as blindness, which is how the blind muezzin Ibn Umm Maktūm is counted.4

Not everyone accepted so wide a net. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643/1245), whose handbook shaped the later science of hadith, sets the hadith scholars' definition beside that of the legal theorists (uṣūliyyūn), who reserved the name for those whose company was long and who sat with him often, as a student sits with a teacher. He also reports that Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab counted as Companions only those who had stayed with the Prophet ﷺ a year or two, or gone on one or two campaigns with him, and he notes the obvious objection: that rule would exclude people nobody doubts, such as Jarīr b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Bajalī.1 In practice the broad definition won in the hadith literature, while the narrower sense survives in how people speak: when Muslims say "the Companions" they usually picture the Emigrants and Helpers who lived through Badr, Uḥud and the Trench, not a Bedouin who saw him once at the Farewell Pilgrimage.

Ibn Ḥajar also explains how a person's status as a Companion is established: by mass transmission, by wide reputation, by the testimony of another Companion or a reliable Successor, or by the person's own statement if he is known to be upright and lived at the right time.5 That last condition matters, because in later centuries a few people claimed to have met the Prophet ﷺ when they plainly could not have.

The Successors and the generations after

The next layer is the Tābiʿūn, the "Followers" or Successors: people who met Companions but not the Prophet ﷺ, and who became the next generation of teachers.6 After them come the Followers of the Followers (atbāʿ al-tābiʿīn). Muslims give these three generations special weight because of a well-known hadith. ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd reports the Prophet ﷺ as saying: "The best of people are my generation, then those who follow them, then those who follow them." It comes with a warning that later people's testimony would run ahead of their oaths.72 Sunni scholars read the hadith as praise of each generation as a whole. Shia scholars accept that the early generations were blessed with nearness to the Prophet ﷺ but do not take the hadith to guarantee the character of every individual in them, a difference that runs through the rest of this page.8

How many were there?

Nobody kept a register. The figure most often quoted comes from the Rayy hadith critic Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī (d. 264/878). Ibn Ḥajar quotes him as saying that when the Prophet ﷺ died, more than a hundred thousand men and women had seen him and heard from him.9 Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ gives a more precise version: 114,000 Companions who had heard from him or seen him.110 Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ links the size of the figure to two great gatherings of the last years, citing reports that forty thousand were with the Prophet ﷺ on the Farewell Pilgrimage and seventy thousand on the expedition to Tabūk.1 Treat the number as an old scholar's estimate, not a count.

The dictionaries show how far short of that the written record falls. Ibn Ḥajar himself admits that all the compilers together had not recovered the names of even a tenth of Abū Zurʿa's number.9

DictionaryCompilerEntries
al-Istīʿāb fī maʿrifat al-aṣḥābIbn ʿAbd al-Barr of Cordoba (d. 463/1071)About 3,500 as he wrote it; the printed editions, with later additions, run to about 4,22511
Usd al-ghāba fī maʿrifat al-ṣaḥābaʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/1233)About 7,554, merging the lists of Ibn Manda, Abū Nuʿaym and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr12
al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥābaIbn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449)Around 12,000 entries, each letter divided into four sections, three of which hold people who were not Companions or whose companionship is unproven1314

That last point is often missed. Ibn Ḥajar's first section in each letter holds those whose companionship is established. The second holds children born in the Prophet's lifetime who are listed in earlier books but for whom no meeting is proven. The third holds the mukhaḍramūn, people who lived in both the pre-Islamic and Islamic eras and became Muslim but never met him. The fourth holds those included in earlier books by mistake.13 So "twelve thousand Companions" is not what al-Iṣāba claims.

Far fewer of them passed on anything. Al-Dhahabī estimated that perhaps 1,500 Companions narrated hadith, and that the figure would never reach 2,000.10 A few hundred of those account for almost all the reports, and seven of them for a very large share, as the section on the narrators below shows.

How they are ranked and judged

This is where Muslims part company, and it is worth going slowly. Both Sunni and Shia Muslims honour the Companions as a group. Both read the same verses praising "the foremost, the first of the Emigrants and the Helpers" with whom God is pleased.15 Both also read the next verse, which says that among the Bedouin around Medina and among the people of Medina itself there were hypocrites whom the Prophet ﷺ did not know, though God did.16 The difference lies in which of these two facts each tradition treats as the rule and which as the exception. The Sunni and Shia series covers the wider history; what follows is only the part that touches the Companions.

The Sunni ordering

Sunni writers arrange the Companions in ranks of merit, and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ gives the classic order. First the four caliphs in the order they ruled; then the rest of the ten to whom Paradise was promised; then the people of Badr; then those at Uḥud; then those who took the pledge at al-Ḥudaybiya.1 Each step has a text behind it.

  • The four. Ibn ʿUmar reports that even in the Prophet's lifetime "we used to regard Abū Bakr as the best, then ʿUmar, then ʿUthmān".17 Al-Ṭaḥāwī's creed, one of the most widely taught Sunni statements of belief, affirms the caliphate of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān and ʿAlī in that order.18
  • The ten. In a report from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf, the Prophet ﷺ names ten people in Paradise: the four caliphs with Ṭalḥa, al-Zubayr, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān himself, Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ, Saʿīd b. Zayd and Abū ʿUbayda b. al-Jarrāḥ. Al-Tirmidhī records it and Darussalam grades it ṣaḥīḥ.19
  • The people of Badr. Al-Barāʾ put their number at a little over three hundred and ten.20 When Ḥāṭib b. Abī Baltaʿa was caught sending word of the Prophet's plans to Mecca and ʿUmar wanted him executed, the Prophet ﷺ answered that Ḥāṭib had fought at Badr: "Perhaps God looked at the people of Badr and said, 'Do what you like, for I have forgiven you.'"21
  • The pledge under the tree. At al-Ḥudaybiya in 6/628 about 1,400 men pledged themselves to him, and he told them, "You are the best people on earth."22 The Qur'an says that God was pleased with the believers "when they pledged allegiance to you ˹O Prophet˺ under the tree".23 This is the Pledge of Riḍwān, "good pleasure".
  • Before and after the conquest. The Qur'an itself separates those who spent and fought before the "victory" from those who did so after, while promising good to both.24 Khattab's translation glosses it as victory "˹over Mecca˺", which Ibn Kathīr says is the view of most exegetes; al-Shaʿbī and others took it to be the truce of al-Ḥudaybiya, and al-Ṭabarī, who reports both readings, preferred al-Ḥudaybiya.113114

The verse most often quoted for the Companions as a body closes the same sūra: "Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah. And those with him are firm with the disbelievers and compassionate with one another." It goes on to picture them bowing and prostrating, and ends: "To those of them who believe and do good, Allah has promised forgiveness and a great reward."111 Ibn Kathīr reads the passage as praise of the Companions as a whole. He also reports that Imam Mālik took its words about enraging the disbelievers through them (li-yaghīẓa bihim al-kuffār) to mean that those who hate the Companions, the Rāfiḍa of his day, are themselves disbelievers, and that several scholars agreed with him.112 That is quoted here as Ibn Kathīr gives it; the Shia reading of verses like these is set out below.

Alongside the ranks sits the doctrine that matters most for hadith: ʿadāla, the uprightness of the Companions as transmitters. Ibn Ḥajar opens his chapter on it bluntly: "The people of the Sunna agree that all of them are upright (ʿudūl), and none disagree except a deviant few."25 Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ states the consequence: a Companion's reliability is not investigated, and this holds even for those caught up in the civil wars, out of good opinion of them and because of the praise in the Qur'an and hadith.1 Two further texts are often cited. "Do not revile my Companions," the Prophet ﷺ says in a report from Abū Saʿīd; if one of you spent gold the size of Uḥud, it would not match a handful of what one of them spent, or even half of it.26 And al-Ṭaḥāwī's creed says: "We love the Companions of the Messenger of God, but we do not go to excess in our love for any one of them, nor do we disown any one of them."18

ʿAdāla is often misunderstood. It is not a claim that Companions never sinned; Ḥāṭib's letter to Mecca, above, is a case the sources themselves record. It is a claim that none of them would lie about him, so that an unnamed Companion in a chain does no harm. Not every non-Shia writer accepted it in full: the Muʿtazilī Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd, for one, was sharply critical of Companions who fought ʿAlī, which shows the doctrine was argued for rather than simply assumed.8

The Twelver Shia view

Twelver Shia scholars reject collective ʿadāla. For them the Companions "are like all other people": companionship with the Prophet ﷺ was a great blessing, but it does not by itself establish that a given person was just or truthful, and each has to be judged by what he or she did.8 The verses on hypocrites in Medina,1627 and the Qur'an's own criticisms of some believers, are read as proof that the community around the Prophet was mixed. So is a hadith that Sunni collections also carry. Abū Hurayra reports that on the Day of Resurrection some of the Prophet's companions will be driven back from his Pool, and when he protests, "My Lord, my companions!", he will be told: "You have no knowledge as to what they innovated after you left; they turned apostate as renegades."28 Sunni commentators usually apply this to Bedouin who apostatised in the Ridda wars, or to hypocrites, and not to the well-known Companions;29 Shia readers see it as a plain warning that companionship guaranteed nothing.

The decisive test in Shia writing is what people did after the Prophet's death, above all whether they stood by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, whom Shia Muslims believe the Prophet ﷺ had designated as his successor. A report in al-Kulaynī's al-Kāfī (vol. 8, no. 341), also in al-Kashshī's Rijāl, says that people "turned back" after the Prophet except three: al-Miqdād b. al-Aswad, Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī and Salmān al-Fārisī.30 Shia scholars themselves discuss how to read it. A common reading is that "turning back" here means abandoning ʿAlī's cause, not leaving Islam.30 ʿAmmār b. Yāsir is usually added to make "the four pillars" (al-arkān al-arbaʿa), the Companions most honoured in Shia tradition after the Prophet's family.31 Companions who took up arms against ʿAlī, or who are held to have taken rights that were not theirs, are judged severely.8

In practice this means Shia hadith books rely mainly on the Imams of the Prophet's family for his Sunna, and use Companions' reports selectively. A classic example is ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Sharaf al-Dīn's book on Abū Hurayra, a sustained critique of the most prolific Sunni narrator.32 It is also fair to note the range within Shia scholarship. Etan Kohlberg's study of Imāmī attitudes to the Companions found real variation between periods and regions, and concluded that Companions who supported ʿAlī kept a measure of authority even in Imāmī thought.33

Zaydī and Ibāḍī positions

The Zaydīs, whose main community today is in Yemen, stand between. Most historic Zaydī scholars held that ʿAlī was the most excellent person after the Prophet ﷺ and should have succeeded him, yet did not condemn Abū Bakr and ʿUmar; a minority judged them harshly. Kohlberg's survey of Zaydī texts shows both strands, and a common Zaydī line that the Companions are the best of the community after the Prophet's family, except those who opposed ʿAlī and did not repent.34

The Ibāḍīs of Oman, North Africa and East Africa arrive at a different map. They regard Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as rightly guided, accept the first half of ʿUthmān's rule and the first part of ʿAlī's, but consider ʿUthmān's later years corrupt and ʿAlī's acceptance of arbitration at Ṣiffīn to have disqualified him. This follows from their doctrine of association (walāya) with the righteous and dissociation (barāʾa) from wrongdoers.35

These positions are old and sincerely held. None of the four traditions thinks the Companions were ordinary people who happened to be nearby; all of them think the Qur'an praised the early believers. They disagree over whether that praise covers each named individual, and over how to read a handful of events after 632.

The Emigrants and the Helpers

Two words organise most of the Medinan story. The Muhājirūn, the Emigrants, are the believers who left Mecca for Medina around the Hijra of 622, leaving houses, trade and often family behind.36 The Anṣār, the Helpers, are the people of Medina who took them in: members of the two great Arab tribes of the oasis, al-Aws and al-Khazraj, who had been feuding for years and whom the Prophet ﷺ had been invited to reconcile.37 Together they became the first Muslim community, and the agreement known as the Constitution of Medina set them side by side.37

The Qur'an describes both groups in a single passage. The Emigrants are "poor emigrants who were driven out of their homes and wealth, seeking Allah's bounty and pleasure". The Helpers are those who settled in the city and embraced the faith before them, who "love whoever immigrates to them" and "give ˹the emigrants˺ preference over themselves even though they may be in need".38 The next verse speaks for everyone who came later, who pray for forgiveness for themselves and for the believers who went before them in faith.38

The brotherhood

Within months of arriving the Prophet ﷺ paired Emigrants with Helpers as brothers, the muʾākhāt. Anas b. Mālik remembered it being done in his family's house.39 Ibn Hishām's biography lists the pairs; Shia and Sunni sources give roughly the same names.4041

EmigrantHelperNote
Abū BakrKhārija b. Zayd40
ʿUmar b. al-KhaṭṭābʿItbān b. Mālik40
Abū ʿUbayda b. al-JarrāḥSaʿd b. Muʿādh40
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwfSaʿd b. al-Rabīʿthe offer of half his wealth42
Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd AllāhKaʿb b. Mālik40
Salmān al-FārisīAbū al-Dardāʾthe famous advice on balance43

Two of these pairings survive in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ as stories. Saʿd b. al-Rabīʿ offered ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf half his property and one of his two wives. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān thanked him and asked to be shown the market; he was soon trading in the market of Qaynuqāʿ, and before long came back married.42 Salmān, visiting his brother Abū al-Dardāʾ, found him fasting all day and praying all night while his wife went neglected, and told him: "Your Lord has a right on you, your soul has a right on you, and your family has a right on you." The Prophet ﷺ said, "Salmān has spoken the truth."43

For a time the brotherhood even carried inheritance: an Emigrant inherited from his Helper brother instead of the Helper's own kin. Ibn ʿAbbās explains that this ended when the Qur'an set out heirs by kinship (4:33), while the duty of help and good counsel between brothers remained.4445 There was also an economic arrangement. When the Helpers asked the Prophet ﷺ to divide their date palms between them and their Emigrant brothers he declined, and instead the Emigrants worked the palms and the two shared the fruit.46

Shia sources, and some Sunni ones, add that the Prophet ﷺ took ʿAlī as his own brother. The version in al-Tirmidhī, "You are my brother in this world and the next", is graded ḥasan gharīb by al-Tirmidhī and weak by Darussalam.47 Ibn Hishām reports the pairing too.41 It carries great weight in Shia writing about ʿAlī's rank.40

The Emigrant and Helper distinction lasted long after the Hijra. It surfaced at the meeting in the Saqīfa of Banū Sāʿida after the Prophet's death, where the Helpers first proposed a leader of their own, a story told in How Sunni and Shia Came to Be. Britannica notes that a large body of Helpers later watched the caliphs closely for their faithfulness to the Qur'an and Sunna.37

The women around the Prophet

Women are not a footnote in these sources. They were among the first believers, they were present at the great events of Medina, and a large share of what Muslims know about the Prophet's home life, worship and law comes through them. Mohammad Akram Nadwi, who spent years collecting the evidence, has documented some ten thousand women who transmitted hadith over fourteen centuries, starting with the female Companions.48 A few examples show the range.

Trade. Khadīja bint Khuwaylid was a Meccan merchant who employed the young Muhammad to take a caravan to Syria and then proposed marriage to him; most sources put her at about forty and him at about twenty-five.49 She was the first person to believe in his mission, and in a hadith Gabriel asks the Prophet ﷺ to greet her from her Lord.50 Women's economic life did not stop with her. Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh's aunt, divorced and in her waiting period, was told off for going out to harvest her dates; the Prophet ﷺ told her to go ahead, "for perhaps you may give charity or do an act of kindness".51

Scholarship. ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr became one of the great teachers of Medina. Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī said that whenever the Companions were unsure about a hadith and asked her, they found she knew something about it; al-Tirmidhī records this, graded ḥasan by Darussalam.52 She is fourth among the most prolific narrators in the list from Baqī b. Makhlad.53 Umm Salama is remembered for judgement as well as learning. At al-Ḥudaybiya, when the men were too dismayed by the treaty terms to obey the order to sacrifice and shave, she advised the Prophet ﷺ to go out, say nothing, and slaughter his own animal and have his head shaved. He did, and they followed.54 Al-Shifāʾ bint ʿAbd Allāh taught Ḥafṣa to write, according to a report in Abū Dāwūd graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.55 Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr reports that ʿUmar valued her opinion and sometimes gave her charge of some market business. The report is famous as the first public office held by a woman, but its chain is weak, and Ibn al-ʿArabī rejected it outright, a verdict al-Qurṭubī repeated in his commentary, so it is best treated with caution.5657

Nursing and water. Al-Rubayyiʿ bint Muʿawwidh said: "We were with the Prophet ﷺ, giving water to the wounded, treating them and bringing the dead back to Medina."58 Anas describes Umm Sulaym and other women of the Helpers going on campaign to give water and treat the wounded,59 and Ibn ʿAbbās wrote that women went on expeditions and nursed the wounded, receiving a gift from the spoils rather than a fighter's share.60 When Saʿd b. Muʿādh was wounded at the Trench, the Prophet ﷺ had a tent put up for him in the mosque so he could visit him easily.61 A report in al-Bukhārī's al-Adab al-mufrad says Saʿd was placed in the tent of a woman called Rufayda, "who used to treat the wounded".62 She is often called the first nurse in Islam.

Battle. Nusayba bint Kaʿb, Umm ʿUmāra, fought at Uḥud. Ibn Saʿd preserves the Prophet's words about her: "I did not turn right or left but I saw her fighting to defend me."56 At Ḥunayn, Umm Sulaym carried a dagger. Asked why, she said it was for any polytheist who came near her, and the Prophet ﷺ smiled.63 Umm Ḥarām bint Milḥān asked to be included among the believers he saw in a dream "sailing on this green sea like kings on thrones"; years later she sailed with the first naval expedition and died after a fall from her mount.64

Household and hard work. Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr earned the name "she of the two belts" (dhāt al-niṭāqayn) by tearing her waistband in two to tie up the food for the Hijra.65 Married to al-Zubayr, who at first owned almost nothing beyond a water camel and a horse, she fed the horse, drew water, mended the bucket, kneaded dough and carried date stones on her head from land two miles away.66 Her account is one of the most candid in the collections about how physically hard ordinary life was.

The wives of the Prophet ﷺ, his daughters and many of these women have their own entries in the explorer below, and the historian Asma Sayeed's study of women and the transmission of religious knowledge is the best place to follow the story forward.67

Work and livelihoods

It is easy to picture the Companions only at prayer or in battle. The hadith collections are more down to earth. Al-Bukhārī has a whole book on buying and selling, with chapters on earning a living by one's own hands and on smiths, and a chapter on herding sheep for pay in his book on hiring. ʿĀʾisha put it simply: "The Companions of the Messenger of God used to do manual work, so their sweat smelt, and they were told to bathe."68 Al-Miqdām b. Maʿdīkarib reports the Prophet ﷺ saying that nobody has eaten better food than what he earned with his own hands, and that the prophet David ate from the work of his hands.69 The Prophet ﷺ himself had herded sheep for the people of Mecca for a few qīrāṭs, and said that every prophet had been a shepherd.70

Meccan merchants. Quraysh lived by trade, and many early Muslims were traders. Ibn Isḥāq describes Abū Bakr as a merchant, well liked and easy to deal with, which helped him bring others to Islam.41 Khadīja's caravans have already appeared. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf, offered half his Helper brother's wealth, asked instead to be shown the market.42 Abū Hurayra explained that his Emigrant brothers were "busy in the markets" while he stayed with the Prophet ﷺ.71

Medinan farmers. Medina was an oasis of palm groves, wells and small fields, and the Helpers were cultivators. In the same report Abū Hurayra says the Helpers were busy with their property, meaning their land and trees.71 The sharecropping deal between Emigrants and Helpers over the palms, mentioned above, shows how the two economies were joined.46

Craftsmen and labourers. Khabbāb b. al-Aratt, one of the earliest converts, said: "I was a blacksmith in the time of ignorance." When he went to collect a debt from al-ʿĀṣ b. Wāʾil, the man refused to pay unless Khabbāb renounced Muhammad.72 ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd, later one of the great Qur'an teachers of Kufa, was a boy herding the goats of ʿUqba b. Abī Muʿayṭ when he first met the Prophet ﷺ, in a report in the Musnad of Aḥmad whose chain its Darussalam editors grade ḥasan.73 Salmān al-Fārisī, who had been enslaved on his way to Arabia and was freed with the Prophet's help, even as governor of al-Madāʾin under ʿUmar is said to have lived by weaving baskets and giving his stipend away.7475

Scribes and clerks. A handful could write, and they became the Prophet's secretaries: for the revelation, for letters to rulers and for treaties. They are the subject of the next section.

The People of the Ṣuffa. At the back of the Prophet's mosque in Medina was a covered platform, the ṣuffa, where poor Companions with no home lived. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Bakr describes them as poor people, and the Prophet ﷺ told anyone who had food for two to take a third from among them.76 Abū Hurayra, who was one of them, called them "the guests of Islam, who had no family, no money and nobody to depend on", and told the story of a single bowl of milk that the Prophet ﷺ had him pass round all of them before drinking himself.77 Abū Hurayra's own case shows how a poor man with nothing but time could become a great transmitter.71

Later, under ʿUmar, the state began to pay regular stipends. The first dīwān was a pensions list of free Arab warriors entitled to a share of the spoils of war.78

Scribes and the great narrators

The scribes of revelation

The best known is Zayd b. Thābit of the Helpers, a young man when the Prophet ﷺ died. When Abū Bakr asked him to collect the Qur'an into one volume after the battle of al-Yamāma, he told him: "You are a wise young man and we do not suspect you, and you used to write the revelation for the Messenger of God." Zayd gathered it "from palm stalks, thin white stones and the memories of men".79 The Prophet ﷺ also had him learn the writing used in the Jews' letters (some reports say Syriac) so that he could handle that correspondence himself, which Zayd says took him about half a month; al-Tirmidhī's report is graded ḥasan on sunnah.com.80

Others wrote too. Muslim records that Abū Sufyān, after he became Muslim, asked that his son Muʿāwiya be made one of the Prophet's scribes, and the Prophet ﷺ agreed.81 The ninth-century historian al-Yaʿqūbī lists about thirteen men who wrote revelation, letters and agreements, including ʿAlī, ʿUthmān, ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ and Muʿāwiya; al-Masʿūdī adds that Zayd also wrote to kings and served as translator. The Shia scholar Murtaḍā Muṭahharī collected these reports in a short chapter that is a good way in.82 Later lists grew longer, and not every name on them is secure.

The Companions who narrated the most

Hadith scholars call the Companions with the largest number of reports the mukthirūn, "those who narrated much". The usual figures go back to the Musnad of the Andalusian scholar Baqī b. Makhlad (d. 276/889), whose book is lost; Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) preserved its count of reports per Companion, and later writers such as al-Suyūṭī repeated it.538384

CompanionReports in Baqī's MusnadWhy so many
Abū Hurayra (d. c. 57–59/676–679)5,374 (some copies 5,364)One of the Ṣuffa; stayed at the Prophet's side while others worked71
ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar2,630Son of ʿUmar; lived until the 70s AH
Anas b. Mālik2,286Served the Prophet ﷺ in his house for ten years as a boy85
ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr2,210His wife; lived and taught in Medina for almost half a century after him86
ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās1,660The great exegete, who gathered reports from older Companions87
Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh1,540A Helper, son of a martyr of Uḥud
Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī1,170A Helper of Banū Khudra

Two cautions. First, these totals are generally understood to count reports as they reached Baqī, with repetitions through different chains, so the number of distinct sayings is smaller. Second, "most reports" is not the same as "most important". Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, who died within a few years of the Prophet ﷺ and spent those years governing, narrate comparatively little. The figures are given here as Baqī's list reports them.8410

Abū Hurayra's place at the top has long been argued over. Sunni scholars defend his accuracy and point to his own explanation of how he came to hear so much: the others were in the market or in their fields while he stayed with the Prophet ﷺ "content with what filled my stomach".71 Shia critics, most fully Sharaf al-Dīn, question how so much could come from a man who was with the Prophet ﷺ for a few years.32 The article on the people behind the hadith takes this further, and How a Hadith Is Judged explains the gradings used on this page.

After him: travels, graves and the fitna

When the Prophet ﷺ died in Medina in 11/632, most of the Companions were in Arabia. Within twenty years many were a thousand miles away. The armies that took Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Iran were led by Companions and full of them, and when the fighting stopped they settled in the new garrison cities: Kufa and Basra in Iraq, al-Fusṭāṭ in Egypt, and the old cities of Damascus and Ḥimṣ in Syria. Each city later traced its learning back to the Companions who had lived there, which is why the biographical dictionaries so often note where a person "settled" (nazala).

A few journeys stand out.

  • Egypt. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ took Egypt from the Byzantines between 640 and 642, founded al-Fusṭāṭ with the mosque that still bears his name, and died there in 663.88
  • Iraq and Iran. Salmān al-Fārisī returned to the Persian heartland as governor of al-Madāʾin, the old Sasanian capital, and is buried there at the place now called Salmān Pāk.74
  • The sea and Cyprus. Umm Ḥarām bint Milḥān sailed with the first naval expedition in the time of Muʿāwiya and died after a fall from her mount.64 Her tomb near Larnaca, the Hala Sultan Tekke, is still a place of visitation.89
  • Constantinople. Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī, in whose house the Prophet ﷺ lodged when he first reached Medina,41 joined the Muslim campaign against Constantinople. A report in Abū Dāwūd, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, ends: "Abū Ayyūb continued to strive in the path of God until he was buried in Constantinople."90
  • Central Asia. Qutham b. al-ʿAbbās, the Prophet's cousin, is said to have died in the conquest of Transoxania; the Shāh-i Zinda complex in Samarqand grew up around the shrine attributed to him.91
  • Arabia. Many stayed in Arabia. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās died in al-Ṭāʾif,87 and Abū Dharr died in 32/653 at al-Rabadha, the desert stop where ʿUthmān had sent him after their quarrel.31

In Medina the great burial ground is al-Baqīʿ, near the Prophet's mosque. Among those buried there are his infant son Ibrāhīm, his aunt Ṣafiyya, ʿAlī's mother Fāṭima bint Asad, his uncle al-ʿAbbās, the caliph ʿUthmān and, in Shia and Sunni memory alike, a great many Companions, along with later figures such as Imam al-Ḥasan and Mālik b. Anas.92 The martyrs of Uḥud, the Prophet's uncle Ḥamza among them, were buried on the battlefield, two to a cloth, without washing.9394 Abū Bakr lies beside the Prophet ﷺ in ʿĀʾisha's room, and ʿUmar, dying of his wounds, sent to ask her leave to be buried "with my two companions". She said she had wanted the place for herself, "but today I prefer him to myself".95

The fitna

The hardest chapter in the Companions' story began with the killing of the caliph ʿUthmān in his house in Medina on 17 June 656.96 ʿAlī became caliph. In December 656 he fought the Battle of the Camel near Basra against an army led by ʿĀʾisha, Ṭalḥa and al-Zubayr; Ṭalḥa and al-Zubayr were killed and ʿĀʾisha was escorted back to Medina.97 In 657 he fought Muʿāwiya, governor of Syria, at Ṣiffīn; the battle ended in an arbitration that split ʿAlī's own camp.98 ʿAmmār b. Yāsir, one of the first seven to declare Islam in Mecca,99 was killed at Ṣiffīn fighting for ʿAlī. Many Muslims have taken that death as the fulfilment of the Prophet's words to ʿAmmār as he carried bricks for the mosque in Medina: "the rebellious group will kill him".100 ʿAlī was assassinated in Kufa in 661, and the civil war ended with Muʿāwiya as caliph.98

Later Muslims speak of this period in two very different registers. Mainstream Sunni scholarship treats the Companions on both sides as having acted on their own judgement (ijtihād). Ibn Taymiyya, for example, read the ʿAmmār hadith as showing that ʿAlī's side was "closer to the truth", while Ibn Ḥajar held that those who fought him erred in good faith and are not to be blamed.101 The dominant instinct is restraint. The Umayyad caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz is quoted as saying of the Companions' wars: "That is blood that God kept my hand out of, and I do not want to dip my tongue in it."10218 Shia scholarship sees ʿAlī as the rightful Imam from the start and judges those who fought him accordingly, while also honouring the Companions who stood with him to the end.8 The two series on this site, Sunni and Shia and How Sunni and Shia Came to Be, tell the political story in detail, including Karbalāʾ. Wilferd Madelung's The Succession to Muhammad is the most detailed modern study of these years.103

The books that remember them

Knowledge of the Companions as individuals comes from a genre of its own: biographical dictionaries built to answer one practical question, whether a person in a chain of hadith could be trusted. The earliest large one is Ibn Saʿd's Ṭabaqāt, arranged by generation, with a whole volume on women.104 Al-Bukhārī's al-Tārīkh al-kabīr covers narrators of every generation.105 From the eleventh century come the dedicated Companion dictionaries of Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Ibn al-Athīr and Ibn Ḥajar, described in the table above, and al-Dhahabī's Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, whose opening volumes are a readable gallery of the leading Companions.106 Al-Ṭabarī added a supplement of Companion and Successor biographies to his great history, now in English.107

Shia scholarship built its own tools. Al-Kashshī's Rijāl, which survives in al-Ṭūsī's abridgement Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl, arranges transmitters chronologically from the Prophet's time and gathers reports about their loyalty and reliability.108 Al-Ṭūsī's own Rijāl groups 6,429 narrators by the Imam, or the Prophet ﷺ, from whom they transmitted, and its chapter on the Prophet's Companions includes people as different as Salmān, Abū Dharr, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar and Muʿāwiya.109 In the twentieth century Muḥsin al-Amīn's Aʿyān al-Shīʿa gathered some twelve thousand biographies, Companions among them.110

These are the works behind almost every entry in the explorer. Below is a short reading list, with a line on each. Links go only to publishers, libraries, digital libraries of classical texts and long-established reference sites.

1. Classical Sunni dictionaries and histories

  • Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845), Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr. Arabic: al-Maktaba al-Shāmila; Leiden edition scan: archive.orgThe oldest large collection, arranged by generation and by precedence in Islam: Badr veterans first, then later converts, then the Companions who settled in each province, then the women. Partly translated by Aisha Bewley as The Men of Madina and The Women of Madina (Ta-Ha).
  • Al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), al-Tārīkh al-kabīr. al-Maktaba al-ShāmilaShort entries on thousands of narrators, often with one sample report. Valuable for how early it is.
  • Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463/1071), al-Istīʿāb fī maʿrifat al-aṣḥāb. al-Maktaba al-ShāmilaThe Andalusian classic: about 3,500 Companions, with full accounts of the famous ones.
  • ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/1233), Usd al-ghāba fī maʿrifat al-ṣaḥāba. al-Maktaba al-ShāmilaCombines four earlier works, marking which one each entry comes from, with his own corrections.
  • Al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348), Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. al-Maktaba al-ShāmilaLively and opinionated; the most readable classical source on the leading Companions.
  • Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449), al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba. al-Maktaba al-ShāmilaThe fullest and most critical; its introduction on definitions, methods and ʿadāla is quoted throughout this page.
  • Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643/1245), Muqaddima, chapter 39 on knowing the Companions. Wikisource (Arabic)Eight pages that set out nearly every classical Sunni position: definitions, ʿadāla, the ranks, the counts, the last Companion to die.
  • Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 39, Biographies of the Prophet's Companions and Their Successors, trans. Ella Landau-Tasseron (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998).A scholarly English translation with rich notes.

2. Shia rijāl works

  • Al-Kashshī (d. c. 340/951), Rijāl, in al-Ṭūsī's abridgement Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl. WikiShia overviewReports about narrators from the Prophet's Companions to the companions of the later Imams; the main early Shia source on individual Companions.
  • Al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067), al-Rijāl. WikiShia overviewA list arranged by the Imam each narrator transmitted from, beginning with the Prophet's Companions.
  • Muḥsin al-Amīn (d. 1371/1952), Aʿyān al-Shīʿa. WikiShia overviewA modern encyclopaedia of Shia figures, with long entries on ʿAlī's supporters among the Companions.
  • ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Sharaf al-Dīn, Abū Hurayra, English trans. at Al-Islam.orgA well-known Shia critique of the most prolific narrator; read it with a Sunni defence alongside.

3. Modern works in English

  • Khalid Muhammad Khalid, Men Around the Messenger (Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust). ibtbooks.comSixty-four warm, devotional portraits by an Egyptian writer; popular and moving, not a critical study.
  • Mohammad Akram Nadwi, al-Muḥaddithāt: The Women Scholars in Islam (Oxford: Interface Publications, 2007); review: Ulum IslamiyyahThe introduction to his multi-volume dictionary of women hadith scholars, al-Wafāʾ bi-asmāʾ al-nisāʾ (Al-Salam Institute).
  • Asma Sayeed, Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). UCLAAn academic history that starts with the female Companions and asks why women's transmission rose and fell.
  • Asma Afsaruddin, The First Muslims: History and Memory (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008).A short, balanced account of the first generations and of how later Sunni and Shia writers remembered them.
  • Asma Afsaruddin, Excellence and Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership (Leiden: Brill, 2002); review: AJISHow the ideas of "precedence" (sābiqa) and "excellence" (faḍl) were used to rank the Companions in arguments over the caliphate.
  • Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010). Harvard University PressA historian's reconstruction of the early community; readable, and debated.
  • Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Cambridge CoreA close reading of the sources on the caliphs and the fitna; his sympathy for ʿAlī's claim is openly argued.
  • Etan Kohlberg, "Some Zaydī Views on the Companions of the Prophet", Bulletin of SOAS 39.1 (1976): 91–98. Cambridge CoreShort and precise; with his Oxford thesis on Imāmī attitudes, the best academic guide to Shia views of the Companions.
  • Valerie J. Hoffman, The Essentials of Ibāḍī Islam (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2012). Syracuse University PressTranslations of Ibāḍī texts with an introduction, including their view of the early caliphs.

Meet them one by one

The explorer below lists 131 people from the Prophet's life: his wives and children, his household and wider family, the ten, the early converts of Mecca, Emigrants and Helpers, women Companions, commanders, scholars, later converts and the young people who grew up around him. Each entry gives family, work, a short life, how the person related to the Prophet ﷺ, relevant Qur'an verses and hadith with their gradings, where Sunni and Shia assessments differ, and the sources used. Search by name, or filter by group, by tribe, by Emigrant or Helper, and by men or women. Tap a name to open the full entry.

Each person appears once, in the group that fits them best. Dates are given in the Common Era and, from the Hijra on, the Islamic (AH) calendar; the classical biographers often disagree, and the entries say so. Hadith grades are those shown on sunnah.com and the grader is named. Tap a name to open the full entry; links go to sunnah.com, quran.com and the sources for each person.

How to use this page

If you are new to the subject, read the short version, then the sections on who counts and how they are ranked, and then browse the explorer by group. If you already know the stories, the numbered notes are the place to check a detail: each takes you to the sources list, and each source links out to the text itself. Hadith references give the collection and number as they appear on sunnah.com, with the grading shown there and who gave it. Reports in the Ṣaḥīḥ collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim are accepted as authentic by Sunni scholarship and carry no separate grade. Dates are given in both calendars where the sources allow, as AH/CE, with "c." where they are approximate.

Two cautions. First, the biographical dictionaries often preserve several versions of a person's birth, death or deeds, and the explorer gives the main alternatives rather than choosing silently. Second, where Sunni and Shia sources assess someone differently, both are reported in that person's entry with sources for each. The aim is to describe what each tradition says, not to decide between them.

Glossary

ʿAdāla
Uprightness; in hadith criticism, the moral reliability of a transmitter. Sunni doctrine holds that all Companions possess it.
Anṣār
The Helpers: the Muslims of Medina, from the tribes of al-Aws and al-Khazraj, who received the Prophet ﷺ and the Emigrants.
Ahl al-bayt
The people of the house: the Prophet's family, understood in Shia tradition as ʿAlī, Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn and the Imams descended from them.
Al-arkān al-arbaʿa
"The four pillars": in Shia tradition, Salmān, Abū Dharr, al-Miqdād and ʿAmmār.
Barāʾa and walāya
Dissociation and association; in Ibāḍī thought, the stance taken towards others according to their conduct.
Fitna
Trial, strife; above all the civil wars of 656–661.
Mukhaḍram
Someone who lived in both the pre-Islamic and Islamic eras and became Muslim but never met the Prophet ﷺ.
Mukthirūn
The Companions who narrated the largest number of hadith.
Muʾākhāt
The brotherhood the Prophet ﷺ set up between Emigrants and Helpers after the Hijra.
Muhājirūn
The Emigrants who left Mecca for Medina.
Rijāl
"Men": the study of hadith transmitters, and the books that record them.
Ṣaḥābī, ṣaḥāba
Companion, Companions of the Prophet ﷺ. The feminine is ṣaḥābiyya.
Ṣuffa
The covered platform at the back of the Prophet's mosque where poor Companions lived.
Tābiʿūn
The Successors: those who met Companions but not the Prophet ﷺ.
Ṭabaqāt
Generations or classes; also the name of biographical dictionaries arranged by them.
Uṣūliyyūn
Theorists of the principles of law, who defined a Companion more narrowly than the hadith scholars.

Sources

These are the sources behind the numbered notes, in the order they are first cited. Qur'an references link to quran.com and hadith references to sunnah.com. Reports from Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim are accepted as authentic by Sunni scholarship and sunnah.com shows no separate grade for them; for other collections I give the grade shown and who made it. The reading list in "The books that remember them" is separate from these notes.

  1. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643/1245), Muqaddima (ʿUlūm al-ḥadīth), al-nawʿ al-tāsiʿ wa-l-thalāthūn, "Maʿrifat al-ṣaḥāba": the hadith scholars' and legal theorists' definitions, Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab's view, the ʿadāla of all Companions including those in the fitna, the 114,000 of Abū Zurʿa, and the ranks of merit. Arabic text: ar.wikisource.org
  2. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3649: chapter heading of the book of the virtues of the Companions ("whoever kept company with the Prophet or saw him, of the Muslims, is one of his Companions") and Abū Saʿīd's report of the armies of the future. sunnah.com/bukhari:3649. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Companions of the Prophet": britannica.com/topic/Companions-of-the-Prophet
  4. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, ed. ʿĀdil ʿAbd al-Mawjūd and ʿAlī Muʿawwaḍ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1415/1995), vol. 1, p. 158: the linguistic meaning of ṣaḥābī and his definition, "one who met the Prophet believing in him and died a Muslim", including those who could not see him, such as the blind. shamela.ws/book/9767/143
  5. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, ed. ʿĀdil ʿAbd al-Mawjūd and ʿAlī Muʿawwaḍ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1415/1995), vol. 1, p. 160: the ways in which companionship is established, and the condition of living at the right time. shamela.ws/book/9767/145
  6. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Tabiʿun" (the "followers", disciples of the Companions): britannica.com/topic/tabiun
  7. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2652: Ibn Masʿūd: "the best of people are my generation, then those who follow them, then those who follow them". sunnah.com/bukhari:2652. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  8. WikiShia, "Sahaba" (Sunni and Shia definitions; the Shia rejection of collective ʿadāla; Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd): en.wikishia.net/view/Sahaba
  9. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, ed. ʿĀdil ʿAbd al-Mawjūd and ʿAlī Muʿawwaḍ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1415/1995), vol. 1, p. 154: Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī: more than 100,000 saw and heard the Prophet; the compilers "have not reached a tenth" of the names. shamela.ws/book/9767/139
  10. Islamweb, fatwa 321247, "Number of Companions who narrated ahaadeeth" (Abū Zurʿa's 100,000 and 114,000; Ibn Ḥajar's "not a tenth"; al-Dhahabī's estimate of about 1,500 narrators): islamweb.net
  11. Al-Rābiṭa al-Muḥammadiyya li-l-ʿUlamāʾ (Morocco), "al-Istīʿāb fī maʿrifat al-aṣḥāb li-Abī ʿUmar Yūsuf b. ʿAbd al-Barr" (3,500 entries as the author compiled it; 4,225 in the printed text): arrabita.ma
  12. Alukah, "Usd al-ghāba fī maʿrifat al-ṣaḥāba li-Ibn al-Athīr" (7,554 biographies, with chains): alukah.net; Arabic text (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya edition) at shamela.ws/book/1110
  13. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, ed. ʿĀdil ʿAbd al-Mawjūd and ʿAlī Muʿawwaḍ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1415/1995), vol. 1, p. 156: the four sections into which each letter is divided. shamela.ws/book/9767/141
  14. On the size of al-Iṣāba (commonly described as about 12,000 biographies), publisher's description: sifatusafwa.com
  15. Qur'an 9:100 ("the foremost, the first of the Emigrants and the Helpers"): quran.com/9/100
  16. Qur'an 9:101 (hypocrites among the Bedouin and the people of Medina): quran.com/9/101
  17. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3655: Ibn ʿUmar: "we used to regard Abū Bakr as the best, then ʿUmar, then ʿUthmān". sunnah.com/bukhari:3655. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  18. Al-Ṭaḥāwī (d. 321/933), al-ʿAqīda al-Ṭaḥāwiyya, trans. Iqbal Ahmad Aʿzami (on the Companions, the order of the four caliphs and the ten): masud.co.uk
  19. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3747: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf: the ten in Paradise. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3747. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam.
  20. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3957: al-Barāʾ: the people of Badr were "over three hundred and ten". sunnah.com/bukhari:3957. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  21. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3983: ʿAlī on Ḥāṭib b. Abī Baltaʿa and the people of Badr. sunnah.com/bukhari:3983. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  22. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4154: Jābir: about 1,400 at al-Ḥudaybiya, "you are the best people on earth". sunnah.com/bukhari:4154. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  23. Qur'an 48:18 (the pledge under the tree): quran.com/48/18
  24. Qur'an 57:10 (those who spent and fought before the victory): quran.com/57/10
  25. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, ed. ʿĀdil ʿAbd al-Mawjūd and ʿAlī Muʿawwaḍ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1415/1995), vol. 1, p. 162: "the people of the Sunna agree that all of them are upright…". shamela.ws/book/9767/147
  26. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3673: Abū Saʿīd: "Do not revile my Companions…". sunnah.com/bukhari:3673. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  27. Qur'an 63:1 (the hypocrites' testimony): quran.com/63/1
  28. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6585: Abū Hurayra: Companions driven back from the Pool. sunnah.com/bukhari:6585. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  29. Islamweb, fatwa 163537, "Driving some Companions away from the Prophet's Hawdh" (the readings of al-Khaṭṭābī, Ibn Ḥajar, al-ʿAynī and Ibn al-Jawzī): islamweb.net
  30. Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 8 (al-Rawḍa), pp. 245–246, no. 341, and al-Kashshī, Rijāl, no. 15, as discussed in "Did the Sahaba become Kafir? Pt. I", Iqra Online (on the meaning of irtadda in these reports): iqraonline.net
  31. WikiShia, "Abu Dharr al-Ghifari" (the four pillars; the report of the three; exile to al-Rabadha; death in Dhū al-Ḥijja 32/653): en.wikishia.net
  32. ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Sharaf al-Dīn al-Mūsawī, Abū Hurayra, English translation, Al-Islam.org: al-islam.org
  33. Etan Kohlberg, The Attitude of the Imāmī-Shīʿīs to the Companions of the Prophet (DPhil thesis, University of Oxford), record and abstract at CORE: core.ac.uk
  34. Etan Kohlberg, "Some Zaydī Views on the Companions of the Prophet", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 39.1 (1976): 91–98: cambridge.org
  35. Valerie J. Hoffman, The Essentials of Ibāḍī Islam (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2012), introduction, p. 7 (Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as righteous rulers; ʿUthmān's twelve years divided into six righteous and six unrighteous), p. 9 (ʿAlī and the arbitration) and pp. 28–29 (walāya and barāʾa): press.syr.edu
  36. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Muhājirūn": britannica.com/topic/muhajirun
  37. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Anṣār" (al-Aws and al-Khazraj; the first ummah with the Emigrants; the Helpers' watch over the caliphs): britannica.com/topic/ansar
  38. Qur'an 59:8–10 (the Emigrants, the Helpers and those who came after them): quran.com/59/8-10
  39. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2294: Anas: the alliance between Quraysh and the Helpers made in his house. sunnah.com/bukhari:2294. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  40. WikiShia, "Pact of Brotherhood" (the Meccan and Medinan pairs, after Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, vol. 1, pp. 504–505): en.wikishia.net
  41. Ibn Isḥāq (d. c. 150/767), Sīrat Rasūl Allāh, in the recension of Ibn Hishām (d. 218/833), trans. A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (London: Oxford University Press, 1955); Arabic text ed. F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1858–60), public-domain scan at archive.org
  42. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2048: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf and Saʿd b. al-Rabīʿ; the market of Qaynuqāʿ. sunnah.com/bukhari:2048. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  43. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1968: Abū Juḥayfa: Salmān and Abū al-Dardāʾ. sunnah.com/bukhari:1968. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  44. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2292: Ibn ʿAbbās: inheritance through the brotherhood, ended by 4:33. sunnah.com/bukhari:2292. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  45. Qur'an 4:33 (heirs appointed for everyone): quran.com/4/33
  46. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2325: Abū Hurayra: the Helpers' palms worked by the Emigrants and the fruit shared. sunnah.com/bukhari:2325. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  47. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3720: Ibn ʿUmar: "You are my brother in this world and the next". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3720. Al-Tirmidhī: ḥasan gharīb. Graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam.
  48. Al-Salam Institute, "al-Wafāʾ bi-asmāʾ al-nisāʾ" (Mohammad Akram Nadwi's 43-volume dictionary of about 10,000 women transmitters of hadith; Jeddah: Dār al-Minhāj, 2021): alsalam.ac.uk
  49. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Khadījah" (a merchant who employed Muhammad to take a caravan to Syria; about 40 at marriage, he about 25; died 619): britannica.com/biography/Khadijah
  50. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3820: Gabriel's greeting to Khadīja. sunnah.com/bukhari:3820. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  51. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1483: Jābir: his aunt permitted to harvest her dates during her waiting period. sunnah.com/muslim:1483. In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.
  52. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3883: Abū Mūsā: the Companions found knowledge with ʿĀʾisha. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3883. Graded ḥasan by Darussalam; al-Tirmidhī calls it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ gharīb.
  53. Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), Asmāʾ al-ṣaḥāba al-ruwāt wa-mā li-kull wāḥid min al-ʿadad (the Companions ranked by the number of their reports in the Musnad of Baqī b. Makhlad; Abū Hurayra 5,374, with 5,364 in the base manuscript), al-Maktaba al-Shāmila: shamela.ws/book/30044
  54. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2731–2732: al-Miswar and Marwān on al-Ḥudaybiya, including Umm Salama's advice. sunnah.com/bukhari:2731. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  55. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3887: al-Shifāʾ bint ʿAbd Allāh taught Ḥafṣa writing. sunnah.com/abudawud:3887. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.
  56. Islamweb (Arabic), fatwa 27328, "Ṣaḥābiyyāt ʿāmilāt mujāhidāt" (al-Shifāʾ and the market, citing Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr; Nusayba at Uḥud, citing Ibn Saʿd; Umm Sulaym at Ḥunayn): islamweb.net
  57. Islamweb (Arabic), fatwa 55562, "Ḥawla athar al-Shifāʾ wa-tawliyatihā al-sūq" (the report in Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim's al-Āḥād wa-l-mathānī and the defects in its chain; Ibn al-ʿArabī's rejection, repeated by al-Qurṭubī): islamweb.net
  58. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2882: al-Rubayyiʿ bint Muʿawwidh: giving water to the wounded and treating them. sunnah.com/bukhari:2882. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  59. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1810: Anas: Umm Sulaym and women of the Helpers on campaign, giving water and treating the wounded. sunnah.com/muslim:1810. In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.
  60. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1812a: Ibn ʿAbbās to Najda: women on campaign nursed the wounded and received a gift from the spoils. sunnah.com/muslim:1812a. In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.
  61. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 463: ʿĀʾisha: the tent for Saʿd b. Muʿādh in the mosque. sunnah.com/bukhari:463. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  62. Al-Bukhārī, al-Adab al-mufrad 1129: Maḥmūd b. Labīd: Saʿd b. Muʿādh in the tent of Rufayda, "who used to treat the wounded". sunnah.com/adab:1129. No grade was displayed on the sunnah.com page when checked; treat the naming of Rufayda as a historical report rather than a graded hadith.
  63. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1809a: Anas: Umm Sulaym's dagger at Ḥunayn. sunnah.com/muslim:1809a. In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.
  64. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2799–2800: Anas on Umm Ḥarām bint Milḥān and the sea expedition. sunnah.com/bukhari:2799. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  65. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2979: Asmāʾ, "she of the two belts". sunnah.com/bukhari:2979. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  66. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5224: Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr on her work in al-Zubayr's household. sunnah.com/bukhari:5224. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  67. Asma Sayeed, Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): islamicstudies.ucla.edu
  68. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2071: ʿĀʾisha: the Companions did manual work. sunnah.com/bukhari:2071. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  69. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2072: al-Miqdām: no better food than what one earns with one's own hands. sunnah.com/bukhari:2072. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  70. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2262: Abū Hurayra: every prophet herded sheep; he herded for the Meccans for qīrāṭs. sunnah.com/bukhari:2262. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  71. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2047: Abū Hurayra: the Emigrants busy in the markets, the Helpers with their property, himself with the Prophet. sunnah.com/bukhari:2047. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  72. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2091: Khabbāb: "I was a blacksmith in the time of ignorance". sunnah.com/bukhari:2091. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  73. Musnad Aḥmad 3598: Ibn Masʿūd, "I used to herd the goats of ʿUqba b. Abī Muʿayṭ", isnād graded ḥasan by the Darussalam editors: islamicurdubooks.com
  74. WikiShia, "Salman al-Farsi" (governor of al-Madāʾin under ʿUmar; living by weaving baskets; burial at al-Madāʾin): en.wikishia.net
  75. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Salmān al-Fārisī": britannica.com/biography/Salman-al-Farisi
  76. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 602: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Bakr: the people of the Ṣuffa were poor. sunnah.com/bukhari:602. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  77. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6452: Abū Hurayra: the people of the Ṣuffa, "the guests of Islam", and the bowl of milk. sunnah.com/bukhari:6452. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  78. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Divan" (the first dīwān under ʿUmar I as a pensions list of Arab warriors): britannica.com
  79. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4986: Zayd b. Thābit on collecting the Qur'an under Abū Bakr. sunnah.com/bukhari:4986. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  80. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 2715: Zayd b. Thābit learns the script of the Jews for the Prophet's letters. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2715. Graded ḥasan on sunnah.com (Darussalam).
  81. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2501: Ibn ʿAbbās: Abū Sufyān's requests, including that Muʿāwiya serve as a scribe. sunnah.com/muslim:2501. In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.
  82. Murtaḍā Muṭahharī, The Unschooled Prophet, "The Scribes of the Prophet" (al-Yaʿqūbī's list; al-Masʿūdī, al-Tanbīh wa-l-ishrāf, on Zayd b. Thābit), Al-Islam.org: al-islam.org
  83. Al-Rābiṭa al-Muḥammadiyya li-l-ʿUlamāʾ, "Juzʾ ʿadad mā li-kull wāḥid min al-ṣaḥāba min al-ḥadīth" of Baqī b. Makhlad (d. 276), arranged by Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456): arrabita.ma
  84. Mahajjah, "Who is a Sahabi and why do some of them narrate frequently while others do not?" (al-Bukhārī's and Ibn Ḥajar's definitions; the counts from the Musnad of Baqī b. Makhlad as given by Ibn Ḥazm and al-Suyūṭī's Tadrīb al-rāwī): mahajjah.com
  85. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6038: Anas: ten years in the Prophet's service. sunnah.com/bukhari:6038. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  86. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "ʿĀʾishah" (died July 678, Medina; in the first civil war): britannica.com/biography/Aishah
  87. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās" (born c. 619; died 687/688, al-Ṭāʾif; "the first exegete of the Qurʾān"): britannica.com
  88. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ" (Egypt 640–642; al-Fusṭāṭ; died there 663): britannica.com/biography/Amr-ibn-al-As
  89. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Tentative List, "Hala Sultan Tekke and the Larnaka Salt Lake Complex" (Umm Ḥarām, the expedition of 647 and her burial): whc.unesco.org
  90. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2512: Abū Ayyūb at Constantinople and 2:195; "until he was buried in Constantinople". sunnah.com/abudawud:2512. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.
  91. Archnet, "Aramgah-i Shah-i Zindah, Samarkand" (the shrine of Qutham b. al-ʿAbbās): archnet.org/sites/2145
  92. Al-Islam.org, History of Shrines, "History of the Cemetery of Jannat al-Baqi": al-islam.org
  93. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1343: Jābir: the martyrs of Uḥud buried two to a cloth, unwashed. sunnah.com/bukhari:1343. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  94. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ḥamzah ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib" (the Prophet's uncle, "Lion of God", killed at Uḥud): britannica.com
  95. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1392: ʿUmar asks ʿĀʾisha's leave to be buried beside the Prophet and Abū Bakr. sunnah.com/bukhari:1392. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  96. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān" (caliph 644–656; died 17 June 656, Medina): britannica.com
  97. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Battle of the Camel" (December 656): britannica.com/topic/Battle-of-the-Camel
  98. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Fitnah" (the civil war of 656–661; Ṣiffīn and the arbitration): britannica.com/topic/fitnah
  99. Sunan Ibn Mājah 150: Ibn Masʿūd: the first seven to declare Islam, including ʿAmmār and his mother Sumayya. sunnah.com/ibnmajah:150. Graded ḥasan by Darussalam.
  100. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 447: Abū Saʿīd: ʿAmmār carrying bricks; "the rebellious group will kill him". sunnah.com/bukhari:447. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
  101. IslamQA, answer 201963, on the hadith that ʿAmmār would be killed by "the transgressing group" (Ibn Taymiyya: ʿAlī's side "closer to the truth"; Ibn Ḥajar on ijtihād): islamqa.info/en/answers/201963
  102. IslamQA, answer 127028, "Necessity of refraining from discussion of the disagreements that occurred among the Companions" (ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-Qurṭubī, Ibn Abī Zayd): islamqa.info/en/answers/127028
  103. Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997): cambridge.org
  104. Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845), Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, ed. E. Sachau et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1904–40); Arabic text (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya edition) at shamela.ws/book/1686; public-domain scan of a Leiden volume at archive.org
  105. Al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), al-Tārīkh al-kabīr, ed. al-Muʿallimī al-Yamānī: shamela.ws/book/956
  106. Al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348), Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla edition): shamela.ws/book/10906
  107. Al-Ṭabarī, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 39, Biographies of the Prophet's Companions and Their Successors, trans. Ella Landau-Tasseron (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998); publisher's preview: pageplace.de
  108. WikiShia, "Rijal al-Kashshi" (al-Kashshī, d. c. 340/951; al-Ṭūsī's abridgement Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl): en.wikishia.net
  109. WikiShia, "Rijal al-Tusi" (6,429 narrators arranged by the Imam they transmitted from; the chapter on the Prophet's Companions): en.wikishia.net
  110. WikiShia, "A'yan al-Shi'a (book)" (Muḥsin al-Amīn; about 12,000 biographies): en.wikishia.net
  111. Qur'an 48:29 (Muḥammad and "those with him"): quran.com/48/29
  112. Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, on 48:29, abridged English translation (the Companions praised in earlier scriptures; Mālik's view of those who hate them): quran.com
  113. Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, on 57:10 (Arabic): "the majority hold that the victory here is the conquest of Mecca", and "from al-Shaʿbī and others, that it is the truce of al-Ḥudaybiya": quran.com
  114. al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, on 57:10 (Arabic): reports from Qatāda and Zayd b. Aslam (the conquest of Mecca) and from ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī ("the dividing line between the two hijras was the conquest of al-Ḥudaybiya"), and prefers al-Ḥudaybiya on the basis of a report from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī: quran.com

This is a research article, not a fatwa. Where it reports rulings, gradings or disputed questions about the Companions, it reports what scholars of each tradition have said and where they said it. For guidance on belief or practice, please ask a qualified scholar you trust.

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