Abu
Dharr

Now as more and more people were accepting Islam

after hearing the words of the Messenger,

the Qureysh decided to stand people on every road into the city

to warn everyone against

the dangerous words of this sorcerer and madman.

But there was one man who was never likely

to pay attention to someone he didn't know

telling him what to do.

Jundab was the son of Junadah,

a bedouin Arab from Ghifar,

The Ghifar were a poverty stricken tribe from Rabadhah,

a wilderness between Makkah and Yathrib,

which was along the way of the Quraysh commercial caravans,

as well as a route that many clans would take

when making pilgrimage to the Ka'bah.

Jundab

was later to become better known

as Abu Dharr.

The Ghifar were known as a tribe of bandits and highwaymen

taking the goods and slaves of the commercial caravans that passed by,

even ignoring the traditional rules that all the tribes respected,

such as the four sacred months

when it was agreed that all travellers should be able to travel in safety,

safety not only for the pilgrim caravans,

but also the big commercial caravans

carrying trade between Rome and Iran

through Makkah.

But the men from Ghifar were not ones for following other people's rules,

at least not when it was a choice of following the traditional rules and going hungry,

or ignoring the traditional rules.

So when caravans travelling through Makkah

passed through Rabadhah

during the months of pilgrimage,

the Ghifar would ambush them.

But Abu Dharr went further than that,

and even challenged the rules that came from

the beliefs of the Ghifar clan themselves.

Abu Dharr didn't believe in the tribal gods.

One night he stood before the statue that was the tribal god Manat,

and realised that such gods were made by men,

and that there could only be One God worthy of worship.

This made him different from the rest of his clan,

but a few years later he heard

that someone in Makkah was speaking about the same thing.

Abu Dharr's brother Unays had made a trip to Makkah,

and told him that there was a man there whose people considered him to be a treacherous enemy

because he said that there is no god apart from One God,

and that he had been sent Words of a Message from God to humankind.

Hearing this, Abu Dharr quickly decided to travel to Makkah himself,

to see this man Unays had told of,

and when he finally faced the Messenger

and asked to hear the words of the Message,

it took no more than a sura

for him to recognise them as words from God,

and accept Muhammad as God's Messenger.

It is said that when Muhammad asked who his people were,

and heard that he was from the bandit clan Ghifar,

the Messenger looked at him in astonishment, saying

"Truly God guides whosoever God wills",

and after giving him guidance on how to live his Islam,

the Messenger told him to go home to his people,

where many of the Ghifar clan later became muslim through his example.

It is also said that although he and his clansmen

continued to ambush any Quraysh caravans that passed through Rabadha,

from then on

after attacking a caravan

he offered to hand back what he had taken,

if those he had taken it from

were prepared to accept Islam

and make Shahada.

To the end of his life, Abu Dharr never lost his burning sense of injustice

at the idea of great wealth being allowed to accumulate alongside great poverty,

especially after the death of the Messenger

when the rapid expansion of the number of people accepting Islam

meant that the amount of zakat to be collected expanded accordingly.

At that time Abu Darr was always there to remind the Caliphs,

and others in positions of power,

of the poverty of the Messenger,

reminding them of the dangers of the wealth gathering at the centre

of what almost overnight had become a muslim empire.