1 of 3 · c. 614 CE · the early years in Makkah · Makkah
'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه
The Shepherd Boy
'Abdullah was a young man of the Hudhayl tribe, without wealth or high lineage, who tended sheep for 'Uqbah ibn Abi Mu'ayt, one of Quraysh's harshest enemies of the Prophet ﷺ.
One day the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr passed by and asked him for milk. He replied that the sheep were a trust and he could not give them. The Prophet ﷺ asked for a young ewe that had never been bred, touched its udder, and milk flowed. The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr drank, and then the udder returned to its former state.
'Abdullah asked to learn those words. The Prophet ﷺ stroked his head and said he would be a learned boy. He accepted Islam, and from then on stayed close to the Prophet ﷺ.
Honesty with a trust, even when no one is watching, is the door to receiving knowledge.
Where are you tempted to be careless with something entrusted to you?
- Musnad Ahmad (the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud on the shepherd)Grade not recorded here
- Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-KubraHistorical report
- al-Dhahabi, Siyar A'lam al-Nubala'Historical report
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
Create a free account to keep your place as you go. Create a free account · Sign in