"May Allah Have Mercy on Abū Dharr"

Now the army left, and, as mentioned before, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had called an istinfār, a general mobilisation: every Muslim, everyone who says lā ilāha illā Allāh, needs to come out. The army left, and there were some people who stayed behind. Now whenever they came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said, so-and-so has not come, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) would say: daʿūhu, fa-in yaku fīhi khayrun fa-sa-yulḥiquhu Allāhu bikum, wa in yaku ghayra dhālika fa-qad arāḥakumu Allāhu minh — leave him alone; if there is any good in him, Allah will make him follow you; and if he is not like that, then Allah (ʿazza wa jall) has given you relief from him. And then they came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said: Abū Dharr is not with us. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said the same thing: leave him; if there is any good in him, he will follow you; and if not, then Allah has relieved you of him.

Abū Dharr was following them, but his camel was slow. And when it slowed him down too much, he picked up his belongings, got off the camel, and left it. And Abū Dharr was walking in the desert, with his belongings, in the heat of the desert. And then the Muslims saw on the horizon this man appearing far away, walking alone in the heat of the desert. They came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said: O Messenger of Allah, there is a man following us, far away. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: kun Abā Dharr — be Abū Dharr. When the man came near, it was Abū Dharr. So they came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said: O Messenger of Allah, it is Abū Dharr. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: yarḥamu Allāhu Abā Dharr, yamshī waḥdahu wa yamūtu waḥdahu wa yubʿathu waḥdah — may Allah have mercy on Abū Dharr: he walks alone, he will die alone, and he will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement alone.

Subḥān Allāh, the years passed, and Abū Dharr was living in the time of the great wealth of the Muslims and of the Muslim khilāfah. And Abū Dharr was a man brought up in the tough desert, who believed in Islam in the early days, when things were still tough: Abū Dharr accepted Islam when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was in Makkah, when things were hard. And as for Abū Dharr's personality — his description — he was a very dark man, well built, huge, and he was hot-tempered; and he was very strict — he was a very strict man. And he was a zāhid: he followed a strict form of austerity. And he held the belief that Muslims should not store up wealth and keep it, and that they should give their wealth to the needy and to good causes; while the predominant view among the Muslims — and this is the view adopted by the ʿulamāʾ — is that if a person pays the zakāh on his money, then the rest of his money is ḥalāl, and people can save money and leave money behind; otherwise there would be no point in having the laws of inheritance in the Qur'an, if you were not going to leave anything behind.

But Abū Dharr followed this strict austerity, and he was not getting along with the authorities, and he was not getting along with many people. He was in al-Shām in the time of Muʿāwiyah, and al-Shām was the storehouse of wealth: because of the jihād with the Romans, and because the land of al-Shām in itself is a very blessed land, the Muslims were becoming very wealthy there, and he was not happy with that. So Muʿāwiyah sent a letter to the caliph, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān — because Muʿāwiyah was the governor of al-Shām — telling him: la-qad afsada ʿalayya Abū Dharrin al-Shām — Abū Dharr has ruined al-Shām for me. So ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān recalled Abū Dharr and summoned him back to Madīnah.

So Abū Dharr left al-Shām and came to Madīnah, and ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān told him to stay in Madīnah. Abū Dharr told ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān: I want nothing to do with your dunyā; leave me alone; allow me to go to al-Rabadhah — which is a very small village, or town, in the middle of the desert. So ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān gave him permission. He did not even want to stay in Madīnah; he was totally against what he was seeing. So ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān gave him permission to go to al-Rabadhah, and he went there, and that is where he lived. And ʿUthmān told him: I am going to give you some camels as provision for you. He said: I want nothing to do with them; I will survive on my own. And he just left without taking anything.

And when he was on his deathbed, alone in the middle of the desert, with no one but his wife and his servant — no neighbours, no friends, no one — Abū Dharr, the Companion of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), this great Ṣaḥābī and scholar, who used to be a muftī in the time of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar and ʿUthmān — now he was living alone: no students, no friends, no neighbours, nobody; and he was on his deathbed. So his wife started weeping. He said to her: why are you crying? She said: how can you not want me to cry, when you are dying here, and I do not even have anything to use as your coffin, and I have no strength or ability to bury you? He told her: abshirī wa lā tabkī — be glad, and do not cry. Because I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say to a gathering that included me: one of you will die in a falāh — a falāh is an empty land — and his burial will be witnessed by a group of muʾminīn, believers. And then Abū Dharr said: and all of the people in that gathering have died, and the only one left is me; and they all died in company — they were all among people. I am the only one who fulfils this hadith, dying alone. So abshirī wa lā tabkī: go and watch the road.

She said: what road are you talking about? The pilgrims have already gone home; they are back in their homes, and the roads are unused. So probably this was an area the pilgrims passed through, but after that one rarely saw anyone. But he told her to go out. So she would go out and spend some time watching, to see whether anybody showed up, and then she would go back and nurse him — until one day she saw a group of men riding on their camels, coming from the horizon. They were described as looking like vultures: apparently she gave them that description because if one is in the desert and sees people coming from far away on camels, that is how they look — like vultures. So she waved to them, and they came to her, and they said to her: what do you want, amat Allāh, O servant of Allah? What is it that you need? She said: there is a man here who is dying, and I want you to take care of him. They said: who is he? She said: Abū Dharr. They said: the Companion of the Messenger of Allah? She said: yes. They offered their fathers and their mothers for him: they said, may our fathers and mothers be sacrificed for him. And they rushed to help Abū Dharr, and they came in.

He was lying there in his last moments, and he told them: I give you the glad tidings. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told me that I would die in an empty land, and that my burial would be witnessed by people who were believers. And then he told them: if I or my wife had a garment suitable for me to use as a coffin, I would have used it; but I have nothing. Abū Dharr was living with nothing. He was visited once by Abū Mūsā, and Abū Mūsā came and saw Abū Dharr doing this housework, and he went in to help him, and Abū Dharr said to him: ilayka ʿannī — leave me alone. Abū Mūsā said: I am your brother. Abū Dharr told him: you are not my brother; you used to be my brother, before you took up positions of leadership. He did not even want to have anything to do with somebody who had been appointed an amīr. One can see how strict Abū Dharr was in his zuhd. And another visitor came and described Abū Dharr as having unkempt hair and very old garments: he was living a very difficult, hard life.

So now it was time for his janāzah, and he did not even have anything to use as a coffin. And he told them: if I had anything, or my wife had anything, I would have used it, but I do not have anything. And then he told them: and I do not want any one of you to give me a coffin if he has been an amīr, or a policeman, or a postman. So if you have been an amīr working with the government, or a police officer, or a postman, I do not want you to give me anything; so if there is anyone among you who has not held these posts in the past, then he can give me a coffin. All of them had held these roles at one point or another, except one Anṣārī, a young man among them, who had not. And he said: I am going to give you two garments that my mother made. And he gave him that to use as his coffin. And Abū Dharr died alone and was buried, and they prayed the janāzah over him. And this is the end of the life of one of the great Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

Forget about following the way of Abū Dharr; none of us could do that. But we talk about Abū Dharr so that we can compare ourselves and see how miserable we are — the luxury we live in, the safety, the security, the wealth, the ease of life. When we compare that with the way of Abū Dharr, who held on to strict zuhd until he passed away, it shows us the huge difference between us and him, and it makes us realise how unfortunate we are. We ask Allah (swt) to forgive us; we ask Allah (swt) to guide us to the straight path and make us true believers.