Salamah's Three Pledges and the Hand for ʿUthmān

The next thing regarding the Pledge of Riḍwān is the pledge of Salamah ibn al-Akwaʿ — a great deal has been said about Salamah lately. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) called him to come and give the pledge, so he gave the pledge. Then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saw that he had no protection, no armour, so he gave him a daraqah or ḥajafah. This is a very small shield — something like the size of a frisbee — and he gave it to him. Then Salamah left, and he met his uncle, and his uncle did not have any armour, so he gave him this shield. Then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saw Salamah and told him: come and give the pledge. Salamah said: I have already given my pledge. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: give it again. So Salamah gave his pledge a second time. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) asked him: where is the shield I gave you? He said: I gave it to my uncle. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: your example is like that of the one who said, O Allah, give me a beloved who is dearer to me than myself (Muslim 1807). And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saw Salamah a third time and told him: come and give me the pledge. He said: O Messenger of Allah, I have already done so. He said: give it again. So Salamah gave his pledge three times; he put his hand in the hand of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) three times, to pledge that he would die for him.

And the third thing to mention regarding Bayʿat al-Riḍwān: al-Rawāfiḍ, the Shīʿah, say that ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān did not attend the Battle of Badr and did not give the Pledge of Riḍwān. Why he did not attend the Battle of Badr has already been told: it was because the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him not to attend, and to stay behind with his wife, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), who was on her deathbed. So now, why did ʿUthmān not give the pledge? Subḥān Allāh, this is such a foolish thing to say about ʿUthmān. The whole pledge was for the sake of ʿUthmān; that is one thing. The second thing is that he did give his pledge: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) put one of his hands on the other and said, this is the pledge for ʿUthmān. So ʿUthmān did not give the pledge with his own hand — it was even better: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) gave the pledge for him with his own hand, the blessed hand of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). Allah (swt) says:

We have truly sent you as a witness, as a bringer of glad tidings, and as a warner, so that you, O people, may believe in Allah and His Messenger, and support him and honour him, and glorify Him morning and evening. Verily, those who pledge their allegiance to you pledge their allegiance to none but Allah; the hand of Allah is over their hands. Then whoever breaks his oath breaks it to the harm of his own soul, and whoever fulfils what he has covenanted with Allah, He will soon grant him a great reward. These āyāt were revealed about the Pledge of Riḍwān.

Allah (swt) says that Allah is pleased with the believers who pledged their allegiance to you under the tree. Ibn ʿAbbās says about the āyah — wa tuʿazzirūhu, when the āyah says that you give support to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) — that it means you fight before him with the sword; you fight in front of him with your swords. That is how the loyalty and the love of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) are practised. This is the Pledge of Riḍwān: Allah is pleased with the believers who pledged their allegiance to you under the tree.

Later it was discovered that ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān had not been killed, and that it was a false rumour. But this was only the occasion for this amazing event of pledging to die for the sake of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), for the sake of protecting Islam. This event must have struck great terror into the hearts of the people of Quraysh, to hear or see that the Muslims had pledged to die to the last man, to fight to the last man, for the sake of defending their religion. And this was an event witnessed by the heavens: Allah (swt) revealed the āyāt speaking about it.

When the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) had finished their pledge, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told them, antum khayru ahl al-arḍ: you are the best people on the face of the earth (al-Bukhārī 4154). And in another hadith it says that all of the people who pledged their allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) are forgiven; their sins are forgiven them — illā ṣāḥib al-jamal al-aḥmar, except for the owner of the red camel. And this was al-Jadd ibn Qays, who did not pledge his allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).^* One of the Companions said: I saw him glued to the side of his camel, hiding from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), so that he would not have to give him the pledge.

When the different levels and classes of the Companions are spoken of, it is said that the best are the ten who were given the glad tidings of Jannah; then, following them, the people of Badr; and then, following them, the people of Bayʿat al-Riḍwān. These are the best of humanity. This is the Pledge of Riḍwān, where the Companions came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and offered to give up their lives for the sake of defending the religion of Allah (swt).

Now, back to the reason: the reason was ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān. So this shows that the Muslims were willing to fight and die for the sake of one man, one of their own. And it shows how the ummah is ka-l-bunyān al-marṣūṣ. This is how the ummah should be: like one body — when one part of the body feels pain, the entire body feels that pain and feels the fever. So the entire Muslim force of fourteen hundred men stood up together for the sake of one man, and that was ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (may Allah be pleased with him). The rest of the story of al-Ḥudaybiyah follows in the next chapter.