1 of 2 · Before and after 610 CE · Makkah
Sa'id ibn Zayd رضي الله عنه
The Son of a Seeker
Sa'id's father, Zayd ibn 'Amr ibn Nufayl, had turned away from the idol worship of Quraysh before Islam. Bukhari records him leaning his back on the Ka'bah and saying, "O Quraysh, none of you is on the religion of Ibrahim but me." He refused to eat food slaughtered for idols, and he would save baby girls from being buried alive (Sahih al-Bukhari 3826, 3828).
Zayd died before the Prophet ﷺ received the revelation, searching for the religion of Ibrahim and never finding its teaching in full. The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have said that on the Day of Judgment he would be raised as a community by himself.
Sa'id and his wife Fatimah bint al-Khattab, the sister of 'Umar, were among the early Muslims. A well-known story says that when 'Umar, still an unbeliever, learned of this he went to their home furious, struck his sister and was shaken by her blood, then read a page of Surah Ta-Ha and turned toward Islam.
A seeker's honest search is not wasted; it prepares the next generation to say yes.
What did the people before you search for, so that you could find it more easily?
- Sahih al-Bukhari 3826 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih al-Bukhari 3828 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Ibn Hisham, al-Sirah al-NabawiyyahHistorical report
- Ibn Hajar, al-IsabahHistorical 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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