What Made the Companions Special!

What Made the Companions Special!

In a report by Abdullah bin ‘Amr bin ‘Aas (radiAllahu ‘anhu), he related that a woman came to the Messenger of Allah with her daughter. On the daughter’s wrist were two heavy gold bracelets. The Messenger asked her, “Do you pay Zakat on this?” She replied, “No.” The Messenger said: “Would it please you that Allah will encircle you with two bracelets of fire?” The reporter commented that she took them off and threw them down in front of the Messenger, and said: “They are for Allah and his Messenger.” [Recorded in Ahmed, Tirmidhi]

Think about this for a second – fiqh of zakat aside. Imagine, if you will, yourself in this place. The Messenger of Allah comes to you, and says, “you need to pay zakat on those two gold bracelets.”

What would you do? Probably hum and haw, then get them weighed, calculate the value, and leave your zakat with the masjid to distribute.

But what did this sahabi (in similar narrations, Asma the daughter of Abu Bakr) do? She gave the ENTIRE bracelets, both of them, as charity! Not just paid zakat – 2.5% of of the value – she actually donated the whole thing fee sabi lillah!

And this is what makes companions so special! (And so much better than us!) We do the bare minimum, enough to just scrape by; but they go for the MAXIMUM reward.

And that’s the lesson of this hadith–and what a valuable lesson it is!

We ask Allah to help us learn the lessons from these great companions and to help us implement them in our lives (ameen)!