Abū Quḥāfah

Abū Quḥāfah, the father of Abū Bakr, told his youngest daughter to take him to the top of the mountain of Abū Qubays — this is a mountain in Makkah — and his sight was very weak. So she took him to the top of the mountain, and he told her: O daughter, describe to me what you see. She said: I see a black mass. He told her: those are the horsemen. And then he told her: what do you see? She said: I see a man going back and forth. So Abū Quḥāfah said: that is the man who gives instructions to the cavalry. And then she said: I see the black mass dispersing. He said: the orders have been given to the cavalry; let us rush back. But they did not get home in time: they met the cavalry on their way. And, subḥān Allāh, one of the soldiers saw a silver necklace on the neck of Abū Quḥāfah's daughter, so he ripped it from her neck.

Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him) went to his father and brought him to meet the Messenger of Allah. When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saw the old man, the Messenger of Allah told Abū Bakr: hallā tarakta al-shaykha fa-akūna ana alladhī ātīh — why did you not leave the old man — shaykh means old man — at home, so that I would be the one to come to him? Abū Bakr said: huwa aḥaqqu an yamshiya ilayka min an tamshiya anta ilayh — it is more fitting for him to come to you than for you to go to him. So this shows the respect the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had for Abū Bakr, in offering to go and visit his father; and one can see the respect Abū Bakr had for the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), in telling the Messenger of Allah: my father should come to you, not you go to him. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) put his hand on the chest of Abū Quḥāfah, wiped his chest, and said: aslim — become Muslim. So he became Muslim.

And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told them to change the colour of his hair, because his hair was described as being like thaghāmah. Thaghāmah is a white bird^*; so all of his hair was grey. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: ghayyirūhu wa lā tuqarribūhu al-sawād — change the colour of his hair, but do not make it black (Muslim 2102). Therefore the ʿulamāʾ have derived the ruling that an old man should not dye his hair black, but should change it to a different colour, and that is the colour of henna, which is red. And some scholars said that if a person is young, then he can dye his hair black; but if he is at the age where it is natural to have grey hair, he should not dye it black, but should dye it with henna.

The daughter of Abū Quḥāfah, the sister of Abū Bakr, told her brother that her necklace had been taken. So Abū Bakr said: ayyuhā al-nās, O people, has anyone taken my sister's necklace? No one responded. So he said: iḥtasibī — he told her to seek the reward for it from Allah. Iḥtasibī yā ukhayyah, fa-inna al-amānata fī al-nāsi al-yawma qalīl — because trustworthiness among the people today is little. Ibn Kathīr comments on this and says the reason Abū Bakr said this was that the army was large; and Ibn Kathīr is finding an excuse for whoever took the necklace. He said: probably he took it considering that it belonged to the people of war, so what belongs to them is ghanīmah. And he also gives an excuse for Abū Bakr's saying that trustworthiness today is very rare among the people: meaning that particular day, and not that era or time — that particular day, because it was a large army, and things can get out of hand when an army enters a town and there are a lot of soldiers; these are things that happen with armies. So Abū Bakr was referring to that particular day, and was not referring to the people in general.