The Whole Tribe Becomes Muslim

Abū Dharr went back to his people, Ghifār, and he started giving them daʿwah. Slowly and slowly, people were accepting Islam among the people of Ghifār. He said, "By the time the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) made hijrah, almost half of my tribe were Muslim" — the whole tribe of Ghifār. He said, "And then we decided to go and visit the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and the rest of the tribe said, 'When the Messenger of Allah arrives, and when we go and meet him, we will become Muslim.' So now the whole tribe is Muslim" — all of them are Muslim. The other half just said, "We're going to wait, it's a matter of time," but then they became Muslim too, and they did.

So one day, when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was in Madīnah, they saw on the horizon a dust cloud — a sign of an army approaching, a large group of people. So some of the Ṣaḥābah rushed to their weapons, thinking that maybe an army was approaching them. But the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, “Kun Abā Dharr.” And the prophecy of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was true — it was Abū Dharr and all of his tribe of Ghifār coming to pledge their allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). The entire tribe.

Now, there was rivalry between two tribes, Ghifār and Aslam. When Aslam heard that Ghifār had become Muslim and had gone and pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), they immediately went to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said, "We also want to become Muslim" — two tribes. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, Ghifāru ghafara Allāhu lahā, wa Aslamu salamahā Allāh — Ghifār, may Allah forgive her, and Aslam, may Allah give her peace.

All of it started by the work of one man. And how much did this man know? Was he a scholar at the time? No — he just knew a few āyāt. Later on, Abū Dharr came to learn a lot, but at that stage he just spent a few days with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and that was it. All of Ghifār became Muslim — the last people in the desert one would expect to accept Islam, and they did become Muslim.