Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt al-Tamīmī was one of the earliest Muslims in Mecca and a Companion of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Canonical hadith establishes that he worked as a blacksmith, refused to renounce faith when al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil withheld payment from him, and was connected to the revelation context of Qur’an 19:77–80. Sahih al-Bukhari also preserves his complaint under the Kaʿba during severe persecution and the Prophetic call to patience, as well as his later reflections on migration, the poverty of Musʿab ibn ʿUmayr and the contrast between early hardship and later prosperity. Biographical sources describe Khabbāb as a former captive or slave, an early Qur’an teacher in Mecca and a participant in Badr and subsequent campaigns. He later settled in Kūfa, suffered prolonged illness and died there in 37 AH / approximately 657–658 CE.
Names and variants
Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt· canonicalKhabbāb ibn al-Aratt· canonicalخبّاب بن الأرت· canonicalAbū ʿAbd Allāh· kunyaأبو عبد الله· kunyaAbū Yaḥyā· kunyaأبو يحيى· kunyaAbū Muḥammad· kunyaأبو محمد· kunyaKhabbāb ibn al-Aratt ibn Jandala· birth nameخبّاب بن الأرت بن جندلة· birth nameal-Tamīmī· nisbaالتميمي· nisbaal-Khuzāʿī· nisbaالخزاعي· nisbaKhabbab ibn al-Aratt· transliterationKhabbab ibn al-Aratt· transliterationHabbâb b. Eret· transliteration
Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt
Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt was among the earliest Muslims in Mecca and later a Companion of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. His biography is especially important for the history of persecution, early Qur’an teaching, migration, Badr, and the contrast he later drew between the poverty of the first Muslims and the prosperity of the conquest period.
He is best known as Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt. Classical biographers preserve a fuller lineage as Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt ibn Jandala and connect him with Tamīm, while his life in Mecca also led to the nisba al-Khuzāʿī in some sources.
The kunyahs Abū ʿAbd Allāh, Abū Yaḥyā and Abū Muḥammad are all transmitted. The nisbas al-Tamīmī and al-Khuzāʿī reflect, respectively, reported tribal origin and the social circumstances of his Meccan enslavement.
Specialist biography describes Khabbāb as originally belonging to Tamīm. The same tradition holds that he was captured, probably in the direction of Iraq, and eventually sold in Mecca.
Classical and specialist sources describe Khabbāb as having been taken captive before Islam and sold into slavery. His social vulnerability in Mecca helps explain why conversion exposed him to severe coercion without strong tribal protection.
Biographical sources identify Umm Anmār bint Sibāʿ al-Khuzāʿiyya as the woman who owned Khabbāb in Mecca. This association is also used to explain why some sources call him al-Khuzāʿī.
Sahih al-Bukhari directly records Khabbāb saying that he worked as a blacksmith. The report is tied to a debt owed by al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil and provides unusually secure evidence for Khabbāb’s occupation in Mecca.
Biographical sources describe Khabbāb as literate and capable of writing newly revealed Qur’anic passages. This ability underlies later reports that he taught written Qur’an to early converts.
Khabbāb is consistently remembered as an early convert. Sources differ on the exact numerical ranking of his conversion, placing him at different points among the first Muslims, so no single ordinal number should be treated as certain.
Specialist and classical sources place Khabbāb among the small number of early Muslims who openly declared their faith. His lack of powerful protection made that public commitment particularly costly.
Khabbāb became one of the best-known examples of early Meccan persecution. Canonical hadith establishes that he and other believers were suffering severely enough to ask Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to pray for relief, while biographical sources provide further details of the abuse.
Biographical sources report that Khabbāb was laid on heated stones and that the marks of torture remained on his back. A route in Sunan Ibn Mājah also mentions visible torture marks, but that particular route is graded daʿif by Darussalam, so the scars are supported more securely by the wider biographical tradition than by that single isnād.
Sahih al-Bukhari records Khabbāb approaching Prophet Muhammad ﷺ while he rested in the shade of the Kaʿba and asking whether he would seek divine help for the persecuted believers.
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ answered by recalling believers of earlier communities who endured extreme torture without abandoning faith. The point of the canonical report is perseverance rather than a denial of the suffering Khabbāb and the others were experiencing.
The promise of security between Ṣanʿāʾ and Ḥaḍramawt
In the same Bukhari report, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ foretold a time when a traveler between Ṣanʿāʾ and Ḥaḍramawt would fear none but Allah, apart from concern for livestock. The report closes by warning the believers not to be hasty.
Sources: [1] Biographical/classical account, [2] Biographical/classical account, [6] Biographical/classical account, [7] Biographical/classical account, [8] Biographical/classical account, [9] Biographical/classical account, [10] Biographical/classical account, [11] Biographical/classical account, [15] Promise of security between Ṣanʿāʾ and Ḥaḍramawt, [24] Parallel report graded sahih
Steadfastness in Mecca
Khabbāb’s Meccan biography combines coercion, economic pressure and refusal to renounce Islam. Canonical evidence from his dispute with al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil shows that even payment of a lawful debt was made conditional on his abandoning faith, which he refused.
Classical biography remembers Khabbāb as teaching newly revealed Qur’anic passages to other early Muslims. He is especially linked to the household of Fāṭima bint al-Khaṭṭāb and Saʿīd ibn Zayd before ʿUmar’s conversion.
In the famous sīra account, Khabbāb was teaching material from Sūrat Ṭā Hā in the home of ʿUmar’s sister when ʿUmar arrived. After ʿUmar’s attitude changed, Khabbāb is said to have directed him to the place where Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was staying. This belongs to the sīra-biographical layer rather than a canonical hadith.
Multiple Bukhari reports establish that Khabbāb had performed blacksmith work for al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil and was owed payment. When Khabbāb asked for his money, al-ʿĀṣ made repayment conditional on rejecting Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
Khabbāb refused the condition placed on his payment and stated that he would not reject Prophet Muhammad ﷺ even through death and resurrection. The exchange provides direct canonical evidence of faith maintained under economic coercion.
Bukhari, Muslim and Tirmidhī connect the dispute with al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil to the revelation context of verses 77–80 of Sūrat Maryam, which reject the boast that wealth and children are guaranteed in the afterlife.
Because the al-ʿĀṣ episode appears through multiple canonical routes, its connection to the Maryam passage is among the better-attested revelation-context reports associated with Khabbāb.
Khabbāb migrated from Mecca to Medina and later described this migration as undertaken with Prophet Muhammad ﷺ seeking Allah’s pleasure. His own canonical reflections make the Hijra a central turning point in his memory.
Biographical sources report that after the Hijra Khabbāb stayed in the house of Kulthūm ibn Hidm together with other unmarried emigrants until Kulthūm’s death before Badr.
The sīra-biographical tradition gives more than one name for the Anṣārī man paired with Khabbāb in the system of brotherhood between Emigrants and Helpers. The existence of such a pairing is reported, but the exact partner varies across sources.
Sunan al-Nasaʾi explicitly describes Khabbāb as having been present at Badr with Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Classical biographies also count him among the participants in Badr.
Khabbāb survived Uḥud and transmitted one of the most vivid canonical memories of the battle’s aftermath: the difficulty of finding enough cloth to shroud Musʿab ibn ʿUmayr.
Bukhari, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd and other collections preserve Khabbāb’s report that Musʿab’s shroud was too short to cover both head and feet, so Prophet Muhammad ﷺ instructed that the head be covered and plant material placed over the feet.
Khabbāb contrasted early emigrants such as Musʿab, who died before enjoying worldly prosperity, with those who lived to see material fruits later. The report expresses Khabbāb’s fear that worldly ease might represent part of one’s reward already received.
Classical biographies state that Khabbāb joined the subsequent campaigns of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ after Badr. The canonical record is most detailed for Badr, Uḥud-related memories and his direct observation of Prophetic practice.
Several Bukhari routes preserve Khabbāb being asked whether Prophet Muhammad ﷺ recited Qur’an in the noon and afternoon prayers. He answered yes and explained that they knew from the movement of his beard.
Sources: [1] Biographical/classical account, [2] Biographical/classical account, [6] Biographical/classical account, [7] Biographical/classical account, [8] Biographical/classical account, [9] Biographical/classical account, [10] Biographical/classical account, [11] Biographical/classical account, [17] Recitation in Ẓuhr and ʿAṣr known from beard movement
Prayer on intensely heated ground
Sahih Muslim records Khabbāb saying that the Companions complained about praying on intensely heated ground but the timing was not changed for them. The report became relevant to later discussions of prayer timing and hardship.
Sunan al-Nasaʾi and Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī preserve a report through Khabbāb describing an unusually prolonged prayer of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and three requests for the Muslim community, two granted and one withheld. The routes are graded sahih in those collections.
Sources: [1] Biographical/classical account, [2] Biographical/classical account, [6] Biographical/classical account, [7] Biographical/classical account, [8] Biographical/classical account, [9] Biographical/classical account, [10] Biographical/classical account, [11] Biographical/classical account, [21] Parallel route graded sahih, [26] Long prayer and three requests; sahih
Hadith transmission
Khabbāb transmitted a relatively compact body of hadith compared with the most prolific Companions. His reports nevertheless preserve important evidence on persecution, Qur’anic revelation context, prayer, migration and burial practice.
Many of Khabbāb’s strongest reports are first-person memories: his own work as a blacksmith, his complaint under the Kaʿba, his migration, his observation of prayer and his presence at Musʿab’s burial. This gives his hadith profile a strongly autobiographical character.
Khabbāb lived for decades after the death of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. The later part of his life was spent within the expanding Muslim polity, in very different material circumstances from those of early Mecca.
Specialist biography associates Khabbāb with the campaigns in Iraq during the early conquests. Detailed campaign-by-campaign reconstruction is less secure than his later settlement in Kūfa.
After the conquest period Khabbāb settled in Kūfa. His home there became a place visited by later transmitters who recorded his memories of the earliest Muslims and his reflections during illness.
Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī preserves Khabbāb recalling that he once could not find even a dirham during the Prophetic period, whereas later substantial wealth stood outside his home. The contrast deeply troubled him.
Sources: [1] Biographical/classical account, [2] Biographical/classical account, [6] Biographical/classical account, [7] Biographical/classical account, [8] Biographical/classical account, [9] Biographical/classical account, [10] Biographical/classical account, [11] Biographical/classical account, [30] Contrast between early poverty and later wealth
Fear that worldly prosperity had come too soon
Khabbāb repeatedly compared his later prosperity with companions who died in poverty. In Bukhari and Muslim he described some emigrants as having died before consuming any worldly portion of their reward, while others lived to gather its fruits.
Canonical and sahih reports from his final years describe Khabbāb as suffering a long and painful illness. Visitors found him undergoing repeated cauterization.
Sahih Muslim and al-Nasaʾi report that Khabbāb had been cauterized seven times on his abdomen. The detail is directly attested in strong hadith material and should not be confused with the separate, weaker Ibn Mājah report about old torture scars on his back.
Despite severe pain, Khabbāb said that he would not wish for death because Prophet Muhammad ﷺ had forbidden doing so. This statement is preserved through strong routes in Muslim, Tirmidhī, al-Nasaʾi and Ibn Mājah.
A report from his illness says that a person is rewarded for spending except for what is spent on unnecessary building or “dust,” with wording varying by route. The statement is preserved in hasan or sahih transmissions associated with his final illness.
Khabbāb’s late-life reports are marked by gratitude, fear and reluctance to treat prosperity as uncomplicated success. His remembrance of Musʿab and other poor emigrants shaped the way he evaluated his own wealth.
Some later reports, especially in Shiʿi historical material, place Khabbāb at Ṣiffīn and Nahrawān. Specialist biography rejects this as difficult to reconcile with the severe illness documented for his final years.
Khabbāb’s association with late civil-war battles should therefore not be presented as established. His illness and death chronology make the later political-participation reports significantly less secure than his Meccan and Prophetic-era biography.
The dominant biographical tradition places Khabbāb’s death in Kūfa after years of residence there. A much earlier report placing his death in Medina in 19 AH is rejected by specialist chronology.
Specialist and major classical sources place Khabbāb’s death in 37 AH, approximately 657–658 CE. This date fits his documented late illness and Kūfan residence.
Sources give differing ages for Khabbāb at death, commonly around sixty-three or seventy-three. Because his birth date is not independently secure, these age reports should not be converted into a precise birth year.
Specialist biography reports that Khabbāb asked to be buried outside the settled area of Kūfa, at a time when burials had commonly occurred within house courtyards.
According to the same historical tradition, later residents of Kūfa began burying their dead near Khabbāb’s grave, and the area developed into a cemetery.
Biographical literature reports that ʿAlī visited Khabbāb’s grave after returning from Ṣiffīn and prayed for him. This belongs to later historical transmission and is not needed to establish the death chronology itself.
Khabbāb’s best-known son is ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khabbāb, who transmitted from him. Historical sources later record ʿAbd Allāh and his pregnant wife being killed by Khārijites after Khabbāb’s death.
Specialist biography gives a traditional count of thirty-two hadith reports from Khabbāb when repetitions are included. The number is a cataloguing convention and does not imply identical strength for every route.
An early believer whose memories bridge persecution and expansion
Khabbāb’s strongest historical profile is anchored by canonical first-person reports: blacksmithing in Mecca, refusing religious coercion over debt, persecution under the Kaʿba, migration, Badr-era companionship, Musʿab’s burial, prayer practice and late illness. Classical biography adds the wider story of captivity, Qur’an teaching, campaigns and Kūfan settlement while preserving uncertainty where later reports conflict.
Classical and specialist sources identify Khabbāb as Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt, transmit several kunyahs, and associate him with both al-Tamīmī and al-Khuzāʿī nisbas for different biographical reasons.
Sahih al-Bukhari establishes that Khabbāb and other early believers were suffering severe persecution in Mecca and asked Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to pray for relief.
Biographical sources report lasting torture scars on Khabbāb’s back; a Sunan Ibn Mājah route also mentions such marks, but that route is graded daʿif by Darussalam and should not be treated as equally strong evidence.
Multiple strong hadith routes establish Khabbāb’s complaint to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ under the Kaʿba during persecution and the Prophetic call to patience.
Sahih al-Bukhari and parallel strong routes establish the prediction that security would extend between Ṣanʿāʾ and Ḥaḍramawt despite the believers’ immediate persecution.
Multiple Bukhari routes establish that al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil owed Khabbāb payment for work and made repayment conditional on Khabbāb rejecting Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, which Khabbāb refused.
Bukhari, Muslim and other strong collections preserve Khabbāb’s eyewitness account of Musʿab ibn ʿUmayr’s burial after Uḥud and the shortage of shroud cloth.
Strong al-Nasaʾi and Tirmidhī routes preserve through Khabbāb a report of a prolonged Prophetic prayer and three requests for the Muslim community, two granted and one withheld.
Strong hadith reports preserve Khabbāb contrasting his extreme early poverty with substantial later wealth and expressing anxiety about receiving worldly fruits before the Hereafter.
Some later reports place Khabbāb at Ṣiffīn and Nahrawān, but specialist biography regards these claims as difficult to reconcile with his documented severe illness during his final years.
The dominant specialist and classical chronology places Khabbāb’s death in Kūfa in 37 AH, approximately 657–658 CE; a much earlier 19 AH report is rejected by specialist chronology.
Specialist biography gives a traditional count of thirty-two hadith reports from Khabbāb including repetitions; this is a cataloguing count rather than a uniform authenticity judgment.
A canonical witness to perseverance under persecution
Sahih al-Bukhari preserves Khabbāb’s complaint under the Kaʿba and the response of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ urging perseverance by recalling earlier believers who endured severe torture without abandoning faith.
religious · established
An early teacher of written Qur’an in Mecca
Classical and specialist biography remembers Khabbāb as literate and involved in teaching newly revealed Qur’anic material to early Muslims. His reported role in the household of Fāṭima bint al-Khaṭṭāb became especially prominent in accounts of ʿUmar’s conversion.
scholarly · probable
A securely transmitted Qur’anic revelation context
Bukhari, Muslim and Tirmidhī connect Khabbāb’s dispute with al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil over unpaid blacksmith work to Qur’an 19:77–80. The episode links economic coercion, refusal to renounce faith and a well-attested revelation context.
religious · established
Eyewitness transmission of Prophetic practice
Khabbāb preserved direct observations of prayer, migration and burial practice, including the movement of the beard of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ during silent recitation and the burial of Musʿab ibn ʿUmayr after Uḥud.
scholarly · established
A moral memory connecting early poverty with later prosperity
Late-life reports preserve Khabbāb comparing his own later wealth with companions who died in poverty before enjoying worldly fruits. This self-scrutiny became an important early Muslim reflection on wealth, reward and fidelity to the sacrifices of the first generation.
social · established
Sources
[1]
Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ
al-Dhahabī · Classical biographical source
[2]
Al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba
Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalānī · Classical companion biographical source
[3]
Sahih al-Bukhari 1276
Islam Academy Hadith Corpus
[4]
Sahih Muslim 940 a
Islam Academy Hadith Corpus
[5]
Jamiʿ al-Tirmidhi 3853
Islam Academy Hadith Corpus
[6]
Usd al-ghāba fī maʿrifat al-ṣaḥāba
Ibn al-Athir · Classical companion biographical source
[7]
al-Istīʿāb fī maʿrifat al-aṣḥāb
Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr · Classical biographical source
[8]
al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā
Ibn Saʿd · Classical biographical source
[9]
al-Sīra al-nabawiyya
Ibn Hishām · Classical sīra source
[10]
Khabbāb b. al-Aratt
M. J. Kister · Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition
