3 of 4 · 49–52 AH · the first campaign against Constantinople · Under the walls of Constantinople
Abu Ayyub al-Ansari رضي الله عنه
Do Not Cast Yourselves into Ruin
In the caliphate of Mu'awiyah, a Muslim army set out by land and sea for Constantinople, and Abu Ayyub joined it though he was very old. At the city's walls, one man charged the Byzantine lines alone, and some of the soldiers cried out that he was throwing himself into destruction, citing the verse (Qur'an 2:195).
Abu Ayyub corrected them. He said the verse had been revealed about the Ansar. When Allah gave strength to Islam, they had said among themselves that they should stay at home to look after their property. So the verse came down, and it meant that ruin was in leaving the path of Allah to chase worldly gain, not in a brave man going forward.
He remained in the service of Allah on the battlefield until the end of his life, which he considered the sound reading of the verse.
The real danger is to abandon what you owe to Allah for the sake of comfort, and not to give yourself to it.
What comfort are you protecting that may cost you a duty?
- Sunan Abi Dawud 2512 Graded by Al-Albani: Sahih · Muhammad Muhyi Al-Din Abdul Hamid: Sahih · Zubair Ali Zai: Isnaad SahihSahih
- Jami' al-Tirmidhi 2972 Graded by Ahmad Muhammad Shakir: Sahih · Al-Albani: Sahih · Bashar Awad Maarouf: Hasan Sahih · Zubair Ali Zai: Isnaad SahihSahih
- Qur'an 2:195
- Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wa'l-NihayahHistorical 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.
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