What a Profitable Transaction

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) used to be informed of the actions of some of his companions. Ṣuhayb al-Rūmī (may Allah be pleased with him) — Ṣuhayb the Roman — was an archer in Madīnah.^** He was a blacksmith, and he used to make all kinds of weapons; and he was a good archer. When the command of the Hijrah came — the Muslims had to migrate from Makkah to Madīnah to escape the persecution of the Makkans; it was a command upon everybody, it was farḍ — everyone took their belongings and, one by one, in secret or in the open, began to flee. Ṣuhayb was a rich man, because he was a tradesman who had made a great deal of money; and he was a good archer. As he was going, escaping, the Makkans sensed his flight and followed him, and they caught him right at the outskirts of Makkah, before he had left the place. He took up his position behind a hill, with the rest of the disbelievers before him, and they said: O Ṣuhayb, we are not going to let you go; we are going to fight you and kill you. All he did was set all his arrows down beside him and take up his bow, and say: come, then. You know what a shot I am; you know the archer I am. I will kill every one of you. They replied that they were too many, that he could not kill them all. What did they want, then? Tell us, they said, where you have hidden your money; we want your money. He said: very well. My money is hidden in such-and-such a place; go and check it; it is all yours; take it, and let me be. An incident five hundred miles^*** from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). When they went and found the treasure he had been hiding — his savings, so to speak — they took it, and they were happy. They told him he could go, and he went. When he walked into the masjid of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), after fifteen or twenty days of walking, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had the biggest smile on his face. He said: what a business transaction, O Ṣuhayb! What a business transaction! Nobody knew what he meant; everybody looked on, wondering what the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was saying. You have won, he said: you gave your dunyā, your money, and Allah has given you Jannah in return. How did the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) know of an incident that had happened fifteen days earlier? Nobody had told him anything. Allah (swt) had.

There is the incident that took place between Hind and Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb — Hind, the wife of Abū Sufyān. They spoke about one particular matter in their bedroom, in private, with nobody knowing, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) being somewhere else. When Abū Sufyān came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), before he had opened his mouth, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him: this happened, and this happened, and this happened. He was shocked. How did he know? If Allah informs a person, that person will know. Otherwise, in totality, Allah alone knows the future. Allah (swt) knows the ghayb, and nobody else. A muʾmin is a person who believes in the ghayb.