The Grave Squeezed Him, and Then Released

Now, with all of these virtues of Saʿd, with the special status of Saʿd: when they were burying Saʿd ibn Muʿādh, when they lowered his body into the grave, and when they were covering his body, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was standing right on top of the grave, and suddenly his face changed, and then he said Subḥān Allāh three times: Subḥān Allāh, Subḥān Allāh, Subḥān Allāh. The Ṣaḥābah repeated the Subḥān Allāh after him. It says that you could hear the voices in al-Baqīʿ, in the cemetery; they were saying Subḥān Allāh. And then the face of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) returned to usual, and he said, Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar.

They asked the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), "Why did you say that? Why did you make tasbīḥ, and then you made takbīr?" The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, Taḍāyaqa ʿalā ṣāḥibikum al-qabr wa ḍumma ḍammah, law najā minhā aḥadun la-najā huwa, thumma furrija ʿanhu: the grave squeezed the body of Saʿd, and if there was going to be anyone who'd be spared of that suffering of the squeezing of the grave, it would have been Saʿd; and then the grave released itself. So the earth, the earth released itself. The earth would squeeze in the body of a person when he's buried. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was worried when he saw that, and he said Subḥān Allāh, and his face changed; he was feeling sorry for Saʿd. But then, when the earth released the body of Saʿd, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, Allāhu akbar.

So we ask Allah to spare us from the punishment of the grave. We ask Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, to make our time in the graves times of blessing, of naʿīm, because the righteous servant of Allah will see his place in Jannah. We ask Allah to make us of those. We ask Allah to spare us from the fitan: there is sakarāt al-mawt, and there is the fitnah of the qabr. We ask Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, to save us from all of those.

This was the great Ṣaḥābī (may Allah be pleased with him), Saʿd ibn Muʿādh. He was the head of al-Aws. How old was he when he died? Thirty-seven years old. Meaning that when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) made hijrah, he was thirty years old^******. He became Muslim before that. So here you have a young man giving the prime of his life to the service of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), until he died for the sake of Islam. This is the meaning of nuṣrah: giving nuṣrah to the religion, giving support to the religion. It is not that you stay home, laid back, attend the Islamic conferences in the five-star hotels, go to your mosque, comfortable, driving in an air-conditioned car in summer and using the heater when it's winter, and then you think that you have done the best that you could do for the religion of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, without suffering a bit, without spending a dime. That wasn't how the Anṣār did it. That wasn't their understanding of religion. They spared nothing for the sake of serving Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, and His Messenger Muḥammad (peace be upon him), and that's why they deserved to be called al-Anṣār.