The Core Group

The Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) are the generation on which Islam was built. They are the ones who spread it — and they were, if you imagine a tent, this pillar in the middle that holds up the whole tent. That is the Ṣaḥābah for this religion. They were the foundation of this religion, so they had to be very strong, and that strength came from this intensive training program that they went through in the early years of Makkah.

So there was this core group, small in number — one might say less than a hundred — who went through this training. But then these people became so strong that wherever they were put, the influence they had on the people surrounding them could immediately be seen. Al-Anṣār, for example, are latecomers to Islam. Al-Anṣār only became Muslim in the last half of the daʿwah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). But because the Muhājirūn came and lived with them and mixed with them — and in the initial stage, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) made a brotherhood, where there would be one Anṣārī and one Muhājir, and they were brothers — this gave a chance for the Muhājirūn to help the Anṣār in the religious aspect, and the Anṣār helped the Muhājirūn in the financial support and the social support that they needed. But the early Ṣaḥābah, the Muhājirūn, had this light in them that would emanate and affect the whole surrounding around them.

So there are the three key words: iqraʾ, qum, qum.