The Core Group

And the Ṣaḥābah (may Allah be pleased with them) are the generation on which Islam was built. They are the ones who spread it, and they were — picture a tent, and the 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 programme that they went through in the early years of Makkah.

This core group was small in number — perhaps fewer than a hundred — and went through this training. But then these people became so strong that wherever they were placed, their influence on the people surrounding them was immediately visible. 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 — one Anṣārī and one Muhājir were paired together, 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 is iqraʾ, qum, qum — three words worth holding onto.