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'They are people with high status prestige' (qasida 15:48) This is the motto of this section, which is for talking about the companions and beloved ones to our prophet Mohammad [PPBUH]. You can find all special expressions in the Glossary. We need your comments to develop this site for you.
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Ibrahim ibn Adham An ascetic follower scholar
He is Ibrahim ibn Adham ibn Mansour [AAH] al-Tamimy al-Balkhy Abu Ishaq who died 161 H. He narrated from Abo-Ishaq as-Sobai'y. Ath-Thawry and Baqiya ibn al-Walid narrated from him. He is originally from Balkh. After repentance and leaving the reign, he moved to Sham seeking halal money. He stayed there as a fighter for the sake of Allah, enduring severe poverty and hard fatigue, yet he was persistent to piety and generosity until he died and was buried in Roman countries [the western]. There are different narrations about his father. It is said that he was a rich gentlemanfrom Balkh, and others say that he was an Arab prince in Khorasan and that Adham inherited the reign from him. This means that he became a prince unwillingly. There is a funny story around Adham [father of Ibrahim] which is: "One day, Adham passed by a garden in Bukhary and he performed ablution in one of the rivers there. He saw an apple carried by the river and he ate it. Then, he thought that this apple may belong to the garden’s owner, so he went to him to seek his forgiveness for eating the apple. He went to the house of the owner to meet him. A woman came out. He asked her for the owner, and she said that the owner was a woman. He asked to see her to tell her his story. The woman told him that she owned only half of the garden, whereas the other half is owned by the Sultan in Balkh, which is a 10-day journey. So she only forgave him for her half of the apple. He traveled to Balkh and interrupted the Sultan’s procession and asked for his forgiveness. The Sultan told him to come back to him the following day. The Sultan had a very pretty daughter to whom the kings’ sons proposed, but she refused because she wanted to worship Allah and she wished for a righteous man. When the Sultan told her about Adham’s story, she wished to marry him. In the following day, when Adham came to the Sultan, the Sultan told him that he won’t forgive him, unless he marries his daughter. He agreed reluctantly. When he married her and came to the home, he went to corner and devoted to praying for seven nights. Then, he consummated their marriage, took a bath, prayed and died in his prayer. His wife got pregnant with Ibrahim. His grandfather didn’t have a son, so Ibrahim inherited the kingdom". Ibrahim ibn Adham was brought up as a normal noble man in Balkh. In his youth, a complete change had occurred, in his life, which turned him into a high ranked follower [a person who met any companion], he also became one of the most well-known ascetic scholars in the second century of Hijra. The change in his life and start of his religious state:
In another story about the shift in his life, Ahmed ibn Abdullah al-Maqdsy said: I accompanied Ibrahim ibn Adham and once I asked him about the reason for this shift in his life from the worldly kingdom to the everlasting one. He replied: "I was once sitting at the top of my palace and looked down to see a poor man holding a dry piece of bread which he soaked in water and ate with some salt. I was watching him until he finished eating, then he drank some water, thanked Allah and slept in the yard of the palace. Allah inspired me to think about his conditions, so I asked some of my slaves to fetch him for me, when he gets awake. When he got awake, the boy said to him: “You, poor guy! the owner of this palace wants you”! He replied “In the name of Allah, I rely on Him. No power and no strength but from Allah”! The poor man came with the servant. When he entered, he greeted me and I asked him to have a seat. When he sat and calmed down, I asked him: “You eat the bread while you was hungry and get satisfied”? He replied: “yes”. I asked: “You drank the water while you was thirsty and got quenched”? He replied: “yes”. I asked: “You slept carefree and got you rest”? He replied: “yes”. I blamed myself and said “What do I need the worldly life for? when the self can be satisfied with what I saw and heard”? Then, I was determined to repent to Allah. When the night came, I got dressed in woolen, went out bare footed and started wandering seeking Allah. It was also narrated that one day Ibrahim was excited about his kingdom and wealth. He saw a dream that a man gave him a letter, in which it was written “don’t prefer what is mortal and get deceived with your wealth! What you have is gross, but it is also void. So hurry to obey Allah! as He says [And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord, and for a Paradise] an-Nisa' 3:133". He wake up scared and realized that it is an alarm and exhortation from Allah. Since that day, he repented and was busy with Allah's obedience. About the truth of his intentions and will, it was narrated that, when he left the worldly life and went in the way of Allah, it was only the distance from Balkh to Maro-ar-Rose [a short distance], then he became a complete saint and had his state and rank with Allah. It was so that he said: “stop!” to a man who was following in the water, and the man stopped in the air until he was saved.
One day, Ibrahim ibn Adham increased in the prayer, while he was circumambulating Ka'ba, “Oh, Allah, protect me from sins!” He heard a voice, in his heart, saying “you are asking for His protection from sins, like all other servants. If He do protect you, to whom He will be generous”!? About His Hajj and it was accepted; it was so that after returning from Hajj with a good friend of him from Balkh, he abandoned worldly life, sought the hereafter, chose the land of expatriation, and was happy with earning his eating from his work; either in harvesting or or looking after gardens. His wandering and states After that, Ibrahim ibn Adham wandered in all Islamic countries, such as Kurasan, Iraq, Medina where he visited the Prophet’s Maqam [shrine], and Maccah where he performed Hajj. It is narrated that, during his visit to Maccah, he served Imam Mohammad al-Baqir and that he walked in the funeral procession of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq. He also accompanied Sufian al-Thawry and al-Fadl ibn Ayad in Maccah. It was said that he travelled to Egypt and passed by Alexandria. Then, he travelled to Sham [Syria] where he spent most of his life. He used to say "I never enjoyed life but in Sham. I escaped with my religion from one of its mountains to the other, until everyone saw me thought that I was an obsessed porter". For a while, he was living with some of his friends, when he used to work to support them financially. They used to gather at night to have Iftar [breaking the fasting] in Ramadan, and he used to come late because of work. One evening, they decided to eat Iftar without him in order for him not to be late again. They ate Iftar and slept. When Ibrahim came from work, he found them asleep. He thought they might had no food, so he took some floor and made some baking for them and put it on the fire. They woke up while he was blowing the fire, with his face on the dirt. They asked him for the reason and he said: "I wanted you to wake up with the food ready". They felt sorry and said to themselves: "Look at how we treated him and what he is doing for us". It was also narrated that when Ibrahim ibn Adham wanted to go to the desert, the devil came to frighten him, saying: “You will perish in this desert, as you have no food and nothing to ride”. However, he decided to go through the desert and pray a thousand prostrations per mile, and he did what he intended to do. He spent twelve years in the desert. One year, al-Rashid went to Hajj and saw Ibrahim praying on one mile. He asked about him and found out that it was Ibrahim ibn Adham. He asked him: "How are you Abo-IShaq"? Ibrahim replied: [We fix our worldly life at the expense of our religion So we loose our religion and the one we fix] [So cheers to a slave who prefers Allah, his Lord, And leaves his worldly life to what he expects]
Ibrahim once passed by a stone written on it “I would be useful to you, if turn me upside down”. He turned it upside down and found written on it “You are not working with what you know. How comes that you ask for what you don’t know”?! Ibrahim ibn Bashar said that he accompanied Ibrahim ibn Adham for a while. He always found him sad and absorbed in thoughts, as if he had all the troubles in the world. It was narrated that Ibrahim ibn Adham was carrying the firewood for 17 years. He was hiding his state from people. Abdel-Rahman ibn al-Mahdy said that he asked Ibn al-Mubarak: who did Ibrahim ibn Adham hear from? He said that Ibrahim heard from some people, but he had a quality in himself and he was with secrets. He also said that Ibrahim never did praising or any good deed in public, and when he ate with a group of people, he was the last one to finish. Abdullah ibn Farag al-Qantary al-Abed said: I saw Ibrahim ibn Adham sleeping in a garden in Sham. A serpent kept being pushed away from him, until he was awake. It was narrated from Abdel Gabbar ibn Kathir said: “Ibrahim ibn Adham was told that a lion appeared to some people. He asked them to show it to him. When he saw it, he said to it: “You lion, if you have an order from Allah, go ahead! Otherwise, go away!” The lion, then, went away. People wondered how the lion understood what Ibrahim ibn Adham said. Then, Ibrahim told the people to say “Allah, protect us with your sleepless eyes and have mercy upon us! We can’t perish, when you are our hope”. The narrator Khalef said that he kept saying this, since he heard it, and he never had to faced any enemy. Baqiya ibn al-Walid said: we were in the sea, where a storm blew and the waves roared. People started to cry and ramble. Ibn Ma’iouf was told about Ibrahim ibn Adham who was sleeping at one corner of the ship. He came close to him and said “Abo-Ishaq, can’t you see what is happening to the people”?! Ibrahim said: “Allah, you have shown us Your ability, please, show us Your forgiveness”. The storm immediately calmed down. Saleh ibn Soliman said: Ibrahim ibn Adham needed a dinar, where he was by the sea. He prayed to Allah, so a number of fish came, each carrying one dinar in mouth. He only took one. Abo-an-Nader al-Harath ibn an-Noman said that Ibrahim ibn Adham was getting dates from the oak trees! It was also said that one night Ibrahim was praying, and he got exhausted, so he sat and stretched his legs. He heard a voice saying “is this how you sit with the kings”? In his grave, there was a hole, from which bees come out to sting those tyrants who come intending to harm the village in which his grave is located.
Edited by Samir Gamal Translated by Nahed
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Whoever wants to read more about the great companions, can browse the companions pages in al-Ahbab site.
Editors Team |
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It has
been said that Ibrahim ibn Adham 
Ibrahim