Freedom and Three Hundred Palm Trees

Salmān said, "Because I was a slave, I ended up missing the Battle of Badr and the Battle of Uḥud." And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told me one day, "O Salmān, free yourself from slavery through mukātabah." Mukātabah was a deal that was made by the slave and the master, that the slave would work for a certain time and generate a certain income and ransom themselves. So Salmān went to his owner and said, "I want to be free." So his owner told him, "You have to plant for me three hundred palm trees, and they all have to survive, so at the end I have to have three hundred living palm trees, and you pay me forty ounces of gold." So he came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said, "This is the huge amount of money that I have to pay to ransom myself." The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, "Don't worry." And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) gathered the Ṣaḥābah and told them, "Help your brother."

So Salmān said some of them would bring thirty seedlings of a palm tree, some of them would bring twenty, some fifteen — everyone would bring as much as they could, until I had three hundred seedlings. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him, "When you collect the three hundred seedlings, go and dig the holes for them, but don't plant them — come and tell me first." So Salmān gathered the three hundred seedlings, he went and dug the holes for them, and then he went to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said, "It's all ready." Salmān said, "The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) by himself would go and carry the seedlings and plant them one by one with his own blessed hands." Salmān said, "None of those three hundred palm trees died — they all grew, they all survived." Now, the ratio of palm trees that end up growing is usually a small ratio — many of them die at that young age, because of their fragility and the heat of the desert and the difficult weather — but the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) wanted to do it himself so that they would survive. So he planted them one by one, and they all lived.

So now Salmān had to pay forty ounces of gold, and he had no idea where he was going to get that amount of money from. Later on, one day, a small amount of gold was given to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), so the Messenger of Allah said, "Where is the Persian man? Where is your Persian brother?" So they went and called Salmān. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him, "Take this gold and free yourself with it." Salmān said, "O Messenger of Allah, what would this do?" — when Salmān saw the amount of gold, it appeared to be very small, and it wouldn't be sufficient. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him, "Take it, and it will be enough." So, he said, I took it, and it was weighed, and it came out forty ounces exactly. He said, and then I was free, and I never missed anything with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) after that. And the first battle he participated in was al-Khandaq, the Trench, and his participation in it is well known — he was the one who came up with the idea of the trench.