50 Islamic stories drawn from the authentic hadiths

A man was walking on a barren road under a blazing sun when he was seized by a fierce thirst. He saw a well, went down into it and drank his fill.

Coming back up, he saw a dog panting wretchedly, its muzzle against the ground, eating earth, so much was it suffering from thirst.

The man said to himself: "This dog is suffering as much as I was a moment ago."

He went back down into the well, filled his shoe with water and held it in his mouth as he climbed so as not to spill it. He gave the dog a drink.

Allah was pleased with him and forgave him all his sins.

The companions asked: "Do we have a reward for animals?"

The Prophet ﷺ answered: "For every living creature there is a reward."

The Prophet ﷺ said:

"A woman entered the Fire because of a cat."

She had shut it in her house. She did not feed it, did not give it water, and did not let it go out to find its own food either.

The cat died of hunger and thirst within those four walls.

This hadith is quoted as a mirror of the one about the thirsty dog: a man was forgiven for giving an animal a drink, a woman was punished for letting another one die.

The lesson lies in the care given to what is weak and silent.

Among the peoples of old there lived a man who had killed ninety-nine people.

He was seized with remorse. He was directed to a monk. He asked him: "I have killed ninety-nine people. Can I be forgiven?"

The monk, frightened, answered: "No." The man killed him. His crimes reached a hundred.

The remorse did not leave him. This time he sought out a true scholar. The man told him: "Who could stand between you and repentance? Go to such and such a land — there are pious people there. And do not return to your own country, it is a land of evil."

The man set out, his heart full of hope for the first time.

Halfway there, death took him. The angels of mercy and of punishment disputed over his soul.

Allah commanded: "Measure the distance between the two lands. Which was he nearer to?"

He was a hand's span nearer to the pious land. The angels of mercy took him.

Three men found themselves trapped in a cave by an immense rock. They understood that no man could rescue them.

The first appealed to his kindness towards his aged parents, whom he served before his own children. "If You know that I did it sincerely for You, open a way out for us." The rock moved slightly.

The second appealed to the fact that he had drawn back from committing adultery at the very moment of the act, out of pure fear of Allah. "If You know that I did it sincerely for You, open a way out for us." The rock moved further still.

The third appealed to the fact that he had kept the wages of a workman who had left without claiming them, made them grow over the years, and given him everything back on his return. "If You know that I did it sincerely for You, open a way out for us."

The rock opened completely. The three men came out.

Three men of the peoples of old were tested: a leper, a bald man, a blind man. Allah healed them and made them rich. He sent an angel to test them.

The angel came to the healed leper, wretchedly dressed: "I am a poor traveller, help me for the sake of Allah."

The man answered: "I have many needs myself." The angel said: "I recognise you. You were a leper. It is Allah who healed you." He answered: "This wealth I inherited." Allah took everything back from him.

The same scene with the bald man. The same ingratitude. The same punishment.

The angel came to the healed blind man: "I am a poor traveller."

The blind man said: "I was blind. Allah gave me back my sight. Take whatever you want, I will not hold you back."

The angel said: "Keep your goods. Your two companions have failed. Allah is pleased with you."

A man was walking on a road when he found a thorny tree branch blocking the way.

He thought of all the passers-by who would come after him and be hurt without knowing it.

He took hold of the branch and threw it aside.

That is all. No spectacular prayer, no display of fasting. An anonymous act, on a deserted road, which nobody witnessed.

The Prophet ﷺ said: "Allah was grateful to him and forgave him his sins."

In another version: "That man was admitted to Paradise for that one act."

Ali and Fatima, with their children Hassan and Hussein, had eaten nothing for several days.

Ali worked and bought flour. Fatima made a flatbread, the first for a long time.

As they were about to eat, someone knocked. A poor Muslim: "My family is starving." They gave him all the bread. They spent the night on an empty stomach.

The next day, the same thing. Fatima prepared some food. An orphan knocked at the door. They gave him everything. Another night without eating.

On the third night, a prisoner who had fled and was starving. They gave again.

Three nights in a row, without eating themselves, without the children eating.

Allah revealed concerning them: "They give food, despite their love for it, to the poor, the orphan and the captive — saying: We feed you only for the sake of Allah. We want from you neither reward nor thanks."

Bilal ibn Rabah, an Abyssinian slave, became a Muslim among the very first.

His master Umayya ibn Khalaf dragged him out into the desert every day at noon. He laid him on the burning sand, placed a huge stone on his chest to smother him, and said to him: "Renounce Muhammad and you will be set free."

Bilal, his breath cut short by the weight and the heat, repeated a single word: "Ahad... Ahad..." — One... One...

Abu Bakr, deeply moved, bought Bilal and freed him at once.

On the day of the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet ﷺ asked Bilal to climb onto the roof of the Kaaba and call to prayer.

The man who had almost died under a stone was now calling out from the roof of the world.

Muhammad ﷺ was forty years old when the angel Jibril appeared to him in the cave of Hira. He went home trembling, terrified.

He said to Khadija: "Cover me, cover me." She covered him until the fear left him. He told her everything.

Khadija — who was fifteen years older than him, who was rich and respected — answered without hesitating for a single second:

"No, by Allah, He will never humiliate you. You keep the ties of kinship, you carry the burdens of the weak, you give to those who have nothing, you honour your guests, and you help in the trials of truth."

She was the first person to believe in him. Not after thinking it over. Immediately.

Years after the death of Khadija, the Prophet ﷺ went on sending gifts to her friends and softening at her memory.

Aisha said one day with a touch of jealousy: "She was old. Allah has given you better than her."

The Prophet ﷺ became angry — one of the rare times Aisha saw him truly angry — and said:

"No, by Allah. He has not given me better than her. She believed in me when people called me a liar. She supported me with her wealth when people deprived me of everything. And Allah granted me children through her."

Aisha said later: "I was never as jealous of a living woman as I was of Khadija — and she was dead."

A young man came to the Prophet ﷺ complaining about his father: "He takes my money without my permission."

The Prophet ﷺ sent for the father. An old man arrived, walking with difficulty, leaning on his stick. Before he had even opened his mouth, the Prophet ﷺ began to weep.

The old man spoke: "O Prophet of Allah, I remember the time when this child was weak and I was strong. I gave him everything I had without counting. Today I am weak and he is strong. And he refuses me."

Then he recited some verses: "I fed you, raised you, I watched over you at night when you were ill. I wished you to live even if it were to cost me my life..."

The Prophet ﷺ turned to the son, tears in his eyes: "You and your property belong to your father."

A woman of very humble condition had for her only contribution to the community the sweeping and cleaning of the Prophet's ﷺ mosque in Medina. Nobody really noticed her.

She died. The companions buried her quietly, without disturbing the Prophet ﷺ, thinking her case too slight to matter.

When the Prophet ﷺ no longer saw her, he asked after her. He was told she had died and been buried. He said sadly: "Why did you not tell me?"

He went to her grave, prayed for her and said: "These graves are filled with darkness for those who lie in them. Allah lights them up through my prayers over them."

Yunus ﷺ, disheartened by the refusal of his people, left them without waiting for the permission of Allah.

He boarded a ship. A storm broke out. The sailors drew lots. The lot fell on Yunus three times. He was thrown into the water. An immense whale swallowed him.

In the darkness of the whale's belly, at the bottom of the sea, beneath layers of darkness one upon another, Yunus ﷺ called out:

"There is no god but You. Glory be to You. I have been among the wrongdoers."

Allah heard him and ordered the whale to cast him out on the shore. He came out exhausted, his skin raw. Allah made a gourd plant grow to shelter and feed him.

His people, meanwhile, had seen the signs of punishment in the sky. They repented as one. Allah forgave them — the only time in the history of the prophets that a whole people was saved.

The Prophet ﷺ said one day to Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, one of the best reciters: "Recite the Quran to me."

Ibn Mas'ud said: "Shall I recite to you when it was revealed to you?"

The Prophet ﷺ said: "I like to hear it from the mouths of others."

Ibn Mas'ud began to recite Surah an-Nisa. When he reached the verse:

"And how will it be when We bring from every community a witness and We bring you as a witness against these people..."

The Prophet ﷺ said: "Stop."

Ibn Mas'ud looked up. Tears were running silently down the face of the Prophet ﷺ.

The Prophet ﷺ asked the companions to give in charity to equip the army.

Umar ibn al-Khattab said to himself: "This is my chance to outdo Abu Bakr for the first time." He went home and gave exactly half of everything he owned.

He came proudly before the Prophet ﷺ. "What have you left for your family?" — "Half of my property."

Abu Bakr arrived after him. "What have you left for your family, Abu Bakr?"

"Allah and His messenger."

Umar said: "I shall never manage to outdo him."

A man rose every night in secret, far from any eyes, and wept over his sins until dawn.

No spectacular prayer, no display of fasting. Just tears in the dark.

An angel reported to Allah: "Your servant is weeping."

Allah answered: "If he truly knew Me, he would laugh little and weep much."

Then He said to the angels: "Bear witness that I have forgiven him."

This hadith is one of the shortest. There is no heroic deed in it. Just a man alone in the night who was sincerely sorry.

And Allah who was watching.

Ali ibn Abi Talib was fighting an enemy in single combat. He threw him down, stood over him and raised his sword for the fatal blow.

The man spat in his face.

Ali froze. He got up and sheathed his sword.

The man, astonished, asked him: "Why?"

Ali answered: "Before you spat on me, I was fighting for Allah. Afterwards, if I had killed you, I might have done it out of personal anger. I do not want to mix the two."

The man pronounced the shahada on the spot.

A poor woman came knocking at Aisha's door with her two little girls.

Aisha had only three dates in the house. She gave them to her.

The mother shared out the dates — one for each daughter — and took none for herself.

Aisha watched her, moved.

When the Prophet ﷺ came home, she told him what she had seen.

He said: "Whoever is tested with these daughters and treats them well, they will be a veil for him against the Fire."

Salman was Persian, the son of a Zoroastrian priest. From childhood he felt that his father's religion was not the truth.

He left everything. His father put him in chains. He escaped. He served a Christian bishop. Then another. Then yet another. Each dying master pointed him to the next, until the last one said:

"I no longer know anyone on the true path. But a prophet has come in Arabia. He accepts gifts but not charity. Between his shoulders is the seal of prophethood."

Salman had himself taken to Arabia. The men betrayed him and sold him as a slave. He ended up in Medina.

He brought dates as charity: the Prophet ﷺ shared them out without eating any. "First sign."

He brought dates as a gift: he ate some. "Second sign."

He caught sight of the seal between his shoulders. He began to tremble, to weep, and pronounced the shahada.

Forty years of searching. One single moment. The truth.

Abu Dharr belonged to the tribe of Ghifar, known for its brigands. When he heard of a prophet in Mecca, he went there himself.

Ali took him in and fed him for three days. Abu Dharr met the Prophet ﷺ and embraced Islam at once.

The Prophet ﷺ told him to keep it secret because he was in danger. Abu Dharr went straight to the Kaaba and cried out before everyone:

"I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is His messenger."

The Meccans threw themselves on him and beat him until he bled. Abbas covered him with his own body.

The next day, Abu Dharr did it again. Beaten again.

He went back alone to his desert and went on preaching until half his tribe had become Muslim even before the great migration to Medina.

A king wanted to force a pious young boy to renounce his faith. The boy, whose prayers healed the sick, said to the king:

"Gather all your people, tie me to a tree and say: In the name of the Lord of this boy. Then you will be able to kill me."

The arrow struck the boy. Before dying, he put his hand to his temple and said: "In the name of Allah, Lord of this boy." The whole people cried out: "We believe in the Lord of this boy."

The king ordered ditches to be dug and filled with fire. Whoever refused to renounce his faith was thrown into the fire.

A woman carrying her baby hesitated at the edge of the ditch. The baby spoke and said to her: "Mother, be patient. You are upon the truth."

She jumped.

After the death of Khadija and of Abu Talib in the same year, the Prophet ﷺ went to preach at Taif, alone with Zayd.

The chiefs mocked him. They set the children on him, who chased him and threw stones at him until he bled.

He took refuge in a garden, exhausted, his feet bleeding, alone. He raised his hands:

"O Allah, it is to You that I complain of my weakness. If You are not angry with me, then I do not mind. But Your forgiveness is broader still for me."

The angel of the mountains appeared to him: "If you wish, I will crush these two mountains upon them."

The Prophet ﷺ answered: "No. Perhaps from their descendants will be born people who worship Allah."

In a single night, the Prophet ﷺ was carried from Mecca to Jerusalem, then raised up to the heavens.

At each heaven he met a prophet. Adam in the first. Yusuf in the third, so beautiful that he had been given half of all the beauty in the world. Musa in the sixth, who wept: "This young man will have more people in Paradise than I."

Ibrahim in the seventh, leaning against the Much-Frequented House.

Then to the place where even Jibril said: "I cannot go further. If I advanced a hand's span, I would burn."

He received the command of fifty daily prayers. Musa said to him: "Go back and ask for a reduction. Your people will not be able to bear it."

He went up and came back down ten times, until the prayers were brought down to five.

Musa said again: "Go back and ask." The Prophet ﷺ said: "I have asked too much. I am content."

The Prophet ﷺ fell ill in his last days. The fever was so strong that it could be felt without touching him. He said: "Death is painful even for me."

In his last moments, in the arms of Aisha, he repeated: "With the Highest Companion... with the Highest Companion..."

Aisha said: "He had the choice. And he chose." His hand grew heavy in hers.

The companions refused to believe it. Umar threatened anyone who said he was dead. Abu Bakr came in, lifted the cloth, kissed the forehead of the Prophet ﷺ and said: "How beautiful you are, in life and in death."

Then he said to the people: "Whoever among you worshipped Muhammad — Muhammad is dead. Whoever among you worshipped Allah — Allah is Living and never dies."

Umar said: "It was as if I were hearing that verse for the first time." His legs gave way beneath him.

On the Day of Judgement, people will wait under a sun a cubit above their heads.

They will go from prophet to prophet. Adam will say: "Go to Ibrahim." Ibrahim: "Go to Musa." Musa: "Go to Issa." Issa: "Go to Muhammad."

The Prophet ﷺ will say: "I am the one."

He will prostrate before Allah and praise Him with words of praise that Allah will inspire in him that day, which no one has ever spoken before.

Allah will say: "Raise your head. Ask, and you will be given. Intercede, and your intercession will be accepted."

The Prophet ﷺ will intercede for the believers, one by one, until he says: "O Allah, there remain in the Fire those who said the shahada."

And Allah will say: "They are for Me."

Ibrahim was the son of the Prophet ﷺ and of Maria the Copt. He died at eighteen months.

The Prophet ﷺ was holding him in his arms at the moment of his death. Tears ran down his face.

Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awf, surprised, said to him: "You too weep, O Prophet of Allah?"

He answered: "Ibn Awf, it is a mercy."

Then, looking at his son: "The eye weeps, the heart grieves, and we say only what pleases our Lord. We are, O Ibrahim, stricken by parting from you."

That day there was a solar eclipse. Some companions said that the sun had been eclipsed in mourning for the son of the Prophet ﷺ.

He corrected them at once: "The sun and the moon are not eclipsed for the death or the birth of anyone. When you see them, pray."

Fatima, daughter of the Prophet ﷺ, ground the grain herself every day. The work was so hard that her hands sometimes bled.

She went to her father to ask for a servant who would help her.

He listened to her, then said: "I shall teach you something better. Before sleeping, say SubhanAllah thirty-three times, Alhamdulillah thirty-three times, and Allahu Akbar thirty-four times. That is better for you than a servant."

Fatima went away without a servant, but with something she repeated until her death.

These invocations have been called the Tasbih of Fatima ever since and are recited by millions of Muslims every night.

A young Jewish boy was in the service of the Prophet ﷺ. He fell gravely ill.

The Prophet ﷺ went to visit him — as he did for any sick person, without distinction of religion.

He sat at his bedside. The boy was dying. His father was sitting on the other side.

The Prophet ﷺ said to him gently: "Say the shahada."

The boy looked at his father. The father, who could have said no, looked at his son and then said: "Obey Abu al-Qasim."

The boy pronounced the shahada and died.

The Prophet ﷺ went out saying: "Praise be to Allah who saved him from the Fire through me."

Hassan and Hussein, grandsons of the Prophet ﷺ, still young, saw an old man performing his ablutions incorrectly.

They did not want to humiliate him or wound his dignity.

They had an idea. They went to him and said: "O grandfather, we are arguing over which of us performs the ablutions better. Could you watch us and say who is right?"

They performed their ablutions before him, perfectly, one after the other.

The old man watched them in silence, then said: "It is you two who do it well. It is I who was doing it wrong."

He went away with his dignity intact and his practice corrected.

A man lived his whole life without ever doing a single good deed. When he felt death approaching, he called his sons:

"When I die, burn my body, grind it to ashes, then scatter them half in the sea and half in the air. I swear that if Allah takes hold of me again, He will punish me with a punishment no one has ever suffered."

His sons carried out his last wishes.

Allah commanded the sea to give back what it held. He commanded the wind to give back what it carried. The man found himself standing before his Lord.

Allah asked him: "Why did you do that?"

The man answered, trembling: "Out of fear of You, my Lord."

Allah said to him: "I forgive you."

The Prophet ﷺ said: "The likeness of a man with his three friends is that of someone who has three companions.

The first says: 'I am with you until your death.' The second: 'I shall go with you as far as your grave, then I shall return.' The third: 'I shall never leave you, I shall be with you in your grave and on the Day of Judgement.'"

The first friend: wealth and possessions — they stop at death.

The second friend: the family — it goes with you as far as the grave, then returns to its life.

The third friend: good deeds — they enter the grave with you and bear witness for you.

Yusuf ﷺ was thrown into a well by his own brothers out of jealousy. Sold as a slave in Egypt, imprisoned unjustly for years because of a woman who lied about him.

He never stopped trusting in Allah.

Years later, at the height of power in Egypt, when his brothers came before him without recognising him, he could have taken revenge for every year of suffering.

He revealed himself to them and said only: "No blame upon you today. Allah will forgive you — He is the Most Merciful of the merciful."

This is the forgiveness of one who could do anything. And who chose mercy.

Ibrahim ﷺ had broken the idols of his people. King Nimrod ordered him to be thrown into a huge bonfire.

They built the greatest fire the earth had ever seen. So great that they could not come near it to throw Ibrahim in. They flung him by catapult from a safe distance.

While he was in the air, the angel Jibril appeared to him and said: "O Ibrahim, do you need anything?"

Ibrahim answered: "From you, no. But from Allah, yes."

Allah said to the fire: "O fire, be coolness and peace for Ibrahim."

The fire burned the ropes that bound him but did him no harm. Ibrahim came out of what had been a bonfire as though he were coming out of a garden.

Ibrahim ﷺ left his wife Hajar and his infant son Ismail in a deserted valley of Mecca, without water or food, by the command of Allah.

Hajar asked him: "Has Allah commanded you to do this?" Ibrahim said yes. She said: "Then He will not abandon us."

The water ran out. Ismail was crying with thirst. Hajar ran between the hills of Safa and Marwa seven times, looking for help or water.

On the seventh crossing, she heard a sound. She ran back to her son. The angel Jibril had struck the ground with his heel beside Ismail. A spring of water was gushing out.

Hajar hurried to make a basin of it, saying "Zam Zam" — stop, stop.

That spring still flows today. Millions of pilgrims drink from it every year. And the seven crossings of Hajar have become the Sa'i, one of the pillars of the Hajj.

Umar ibn al-Khattab was one of the most feared men in Mecca and one of the fiercest enemies of the Muslims.

One day he took his sword and went out intending to kill the Prophet ﷺ. On his way, he learned that his sister Fatima bint al-Khattab had become a Muslim.

He went to her house in a fury, struck her husband, then struck his sister in the face when she shielded her husband. She bled.

Despite her pain, she said to him: "Do what you like. We will not leave Islam."

Umar, astonished at her courage, asked to see what they were reading. She handed him a few verses of the Quran. He read them. The trembling he felt was no longer anger.

He went straight to the Prophet ﷺ and embraced Islam.

The Prophet ﷺ cried "Allahu Akbar!" for joy, followed by all the companions.

The Children of Israel were fleeing Pharaoh and his army. Before them, the Red Sea. Behind them, the approaching soldiers.

The people of Musa ﷺ panicked: "We are overtaken!"

Musa ﷺ said: "No. My Lord is with me. He will guide me."

Allah commanded Musa to strike the sea with his staff. Musa struck. The sea split into twelve dry paths, each with walls of water on either side like high mountains.

The Children of Israel crossed in safety.

Pharaoh and his army entered the passage. When they were all inside, the waters closed over them.

Pharaoh, seeing death coming, said: "I believe in the Lord of the Children of Israel."

Allah said: "Now? When before this you disobeyed." But Allah preserved his body as a sign for later generations.

Ayyub ﷺ was tested by Allah for long years. He lost his property, his children, and was struck by a grave illness that made him suffer for years.

His wife, faithful, worked to feed him. One day, poverty forced her to sell her hair to buy food.

Ayyub suffered but never complained to the creation. He kept within him an unshakeable trust.

At the height of the trial, he called out humbly, without complaint, just a call:

"Harm has touched me and You are the Most Merciful of the merciful."

Allah answered him at once. He healed him, gave him back his family and his property, and gave him as much again in added grace.

The lesson the scholars have drawn from it: he did not ask for healing. He simply reminded Allah that he was suffering and that Allah was merciful.

Nuh ﷺ preached to his people for nine hundred and fifty years.

Night and day. In public and in secret. Gently and firmly. With proofs and with warnings.

His people refused. They stopped their ears, covered their faces, turned away from him in arrogance, and told their children never to listen to him.

They mocked him when he built the ark in the desert. "What are you doing?" The flood will come, he told them.

When the rain began, it was too late.

Nuh called his own son: "Come aboard with us, do not be with the disbelievers!" His son refused: "I shall go to a mountain that will protect me." The wave swallowed him before his father's eyes.

Nuh turned to Allah and called upon Him. Allah answered him gently: "O Nuh, he is not of your family. It is an evil deed."

The Prophet ﷺ entered Mecca at the head of ten thousand Muslims, his head lowered in humility before Allah, without pride.

The city that had tortured him, banished him and killed his companions lay before him. The Meccans awaited their fate, certain they would be wiped out.

The Prophet ﷺ stopped before the Kaaba, then said to the assembled Meccans:

"O Quraysh, what do you think I am going to do with you?"

They answered: "Good. You are a generous brother, son of a generous brother."

He said: "Go. You are free."

No prison. No revenge. No mass executions. No spoils.

Total freedom for those who had done everything to destroy him and Islam for twenty years.

That day, thousands of Meccans embraced Islam.

On the day of the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet ﷺ entered the Kaaba and went round it.

Then he asked: "Where is Bilal?"

Bilal, the former slave tortured on the burning sand, came forward.

The Prophet ﷺ said to him: "Climb onto the Kaaba and call to prayer."

Bilal climbed onto the roof of the Kaaba — the most sacred building in Islam, in the heart of Mecca, the city that had tried to kill him.

His voice rose from that roof for the first time.

The notables of Mecca who were watching muttered scornfully. Some said: "This black man on our Kaaba..."

Others, moved, wept.

That day, the voice of the man who had said "Ahad" under torture rang out from the summit of the world.

A man lent a thousand dinars to a friend who lived on the other side of the sea. The friend was to return on a fixed date. That day, he looked for a ship but found none.

Not wanting to break his word, he took a wooden plank, placed the thousand dinars on it in a bag with a letter, and said: "O Allah, You know that I borrowed from this man. He asked me for a guarantor and I said that You were enough. He accepted. I entrust this repayment to You."

He threw the plank into the sea. It disappeared into the waves.

On the other side, the lender was waiting on the shore that day, hoping a ship would bring his money. He saw a plank wash up. He picked it up, found the bag and the letter.

When the friend finally arrived by ship and wanted to repay him, the lender said: "Allah has already repaid on your behalf. The plank arrived in time."

The Prophet ﷺ said: "The strong man is not the one who overcomes others. The strong man is the one who controls himself in anger."

A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him: "Give me some advice." He answered: "Do not get angry."

The man repeated the question several times. Each time, the Prophet ﷺ answered: "Do not get angry."

In another hadith he said: "When one of you becomes angry while standing, let him sit down. If the anger does not go, let him lie down."

The scholars explain that anger is the one state in which a person is ready to destroy in a few seconds what it took years to build — a relationship, a family, a reputation.

The Prophet ﷺ said to Umar and Ali: "A man from Yemen, called Uwais ibn Amir, will come with the reinforcements from Yemen. He had leprosy. He prayed to Allah who healed him, except for a patch the size of a dirham. He has a mother to whom he is deeply devoted. If he were to swear an oath by Allah, Allah would honour it. If you can ask him to intercede for you, do so."

Uwais had never met the Prophet ﷺ in his lifetime. He was too busy caring for his mother to make the journey.

When Umar became caliph, he searched every caravan from Yemen, asking: "Is Uwais al-Qarni among you?"

One day he found him. A simple man, with nothing striking about him. Umar asked him to call upon Allah for him.

Uwais said: "You are the caliph, it is you who should pray for me." Umar said: "No. The Prophet ﷺ himself commanded me to ask you." Uwais prayed for him, tears in his eyes.

Khalid ibn al-Walid was the general who had inflicted the only military defeat on the Muslims at Uhud. He commanded the Meccan cavalry and had manoeuvred round the flank, turning victory into disaster.

Years later, Khalid found himself alone at night, unable to sleep. One thought kept coming back: "Muhammad ﷺ is sincere. And I have been fighting against him for years."

He went to Medina. The Prophet ﷺ saw him coming from afar and said to the companions: "Khalid ibn al-Walid is coming. A man like him cannot remain ignorant of Islam."

When Khalid pronounced the shahada, the Prophet ﷺ said: "I knew that in you there was an intelligence that could lead only to good."

He became the general of Islam. He lost no battle after his conversion. The Prophet ﷺ gave him the name "Sayfullah" — the Sword of Allah.

Asiya was the wife of Pharaoh — the man who said "I am your lord, the most high" and who held absolute power over Egypt.

She saw the infant Musa ﷺ in the Nile. She said to Pharaoh: "Do not kill him. He may be of use to us, or we may adopt him as a son."

She raised Musa in the palace of his worst enemy.

When she believed in the message of Musa ﷺ, Pharaoh ordered her to be tortured. She was nailed to the ground in the full sun. But she called out:

"My Lord, build for me a house with You in Paradise. Save me from Pharaoh and his deeds. And save me from these wrongdoing people."

The Prophet ﷺ said that she is one of the four most perfect women the world has known.

She chose Allah over the palace, over the throne, over absolute power.

Hamza, uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, was the most feared warrior in Mecca. He was not yet a Muslim.

One day, Abu Jahl insulted and mistreated the Prophet ﷺ in the street. A servant of Abdullah ibn Jud'an saw the scene from her window.

When Hamza came back from hunting, the servant told him. Hamza, without even thinking, went to find Abu Jahl in his assembly and struck him with his bow in front of everyone: "You insult my nephew when I am of his religion?"

That day, he had said he was a Muslim before he truly was one.

But that word bound him. He went to the Prophet ﷺ and embraced Islam sincerely.

He became the physical protection of the first Muslims in Mecca. The Prophet ﷺ called him "Asadullah" — the Lion of Allah.

The Prophet ﷺ said: "There are two phrases light on the tongue, heavy in the scales, beloved of the Most Merciful:

SubhanAllahi wa bihamdihi — Glory be to Allah and praise be to Him.

SubhanAllahil Adhim — Glory be to Allah the Immense."

The Prophet ﷺ also said: "The words most beloved to Allah are: SubhanAllahi wa bihamdihi."

And: "Whoever says SubhanAllah a hundred times in the morning and a hundred times in the evening, no one will come on the Day of Judgement with anything better than him, except one who said the same or more."

The scholars point out one of the most beautiful lessons of Islam: Allah has not reserved the reward for the rich, the powerful or the learned. A poor mouth can have the heaviest scales on the Day of Judgement.

The Prophet ﷺ said one day that a man of the Children of Israel had worshipped Allah bearing his arms for a thousand months without a break. The companions were astonished — they could not match that.

Allah then revealed Surah Al-Qadr:

"We sent it down on the Night of Destiny. And what will make you know what the Night of Destiny is? The Night of Destiny is better than a thousand months."

One single night. A thousand months of worship.

The Prophet ﷺ said: "Seek it in the last ten nights of Ramadan, in the odd nights."

Aisha asked: "If I find it, what should I say?" He answered: "Say: Allahumma innaka afuwwun tuhibbul afwa fa'fu anni — O Allah, You are the One who pardons, You love to pardon, so pardon me."

A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him for charity. The Prophet ﷺ asked him: "Do you have anything at home?"

The man said: "Yes. An old rug and an old cup."

The Prophet ﷺ said: "Bring them to me."

The man brought them. The Prophet ﷺ auctioned them before the companions. They were sold for two dirhams.

He handed the two dirhams to the man and said: "With one dirham, buy food for your family. With the other, buy an axe and come back."

The man came back with the axe. The Prophet ﷺ fitted a handle to it with his own hands and said: "Go and cut wood and sell it. And do not come back to me for a fortnight."

The man came back a fortnight later with ten dirhams.

The Prophet ﷺ said: "That is better for you than coming with a black mark on your face on the Day of Judgement."

A man came to the Prophet ﷺ saying that he wanted to go out to jihad.

The Prophet ﷺ asked him: "Do you have a mother?" The man said yes.

The Prophet ﷺ said: "Stay with her. Paradise lies at her feet."

In another hadith, a man asked: "O Prophet of Allah, who most deserves my company?" He answered: "Your mother." — "And then?" — "Your mother." — "And then?" — "Your mother." — "And then?" — "Your father."

A man said: "I carried my mother on my back from Yemen to Mecca for the pilgrimage. Have I repaid my debt to her?"

The Prophet ﷺ answered: "Perhaps for a single contraction she had while giving birth to you."