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Saints and Tombs of Homs

3 sourced records · 1 verified locations

The atlas holds 3 records for Homs. Each record's sources and review status are shown on its own page. Breakdown: 2 Companions · 1 Successors.

Map of Homs

Records in Homs

Companion

Khalid ibn al-Walid

The famous commander among the Companions, to whom the Prophet gave the title Sayf Allah ("the Sword of God"). His full name was Abu Sulayman Khalid ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira al-Makhzumi al-Qurashi ; he is also known as Faris al-Islam . He was born in Mecca some 35-39 years before the Hijra (583-587). His lineage joins that of the Prophet at his seventh-generation ancestor Murra. His father al-Walid ibn al-Mughira was a distinguished man among Quraysh; his mother Lubaba al-Sughra Asma bint al-Harith was a paternal half-sister of Maymuna bint al-Harith, one of the Prophet's wives. The Banu Makhzum, to whom he belonged, held the command of the Qurayshi cavalry. Following custom he spent his early childhood with a family in the desert; back in Mecca he learned riding, the use of arms, and the leading of cavalry units. He travelled with trade caravans to Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Yemen; it is known that he could read and write and that after becoming Muslim he was among the Prophet's scribes. Before Islam he commanded the cavalry of the Qurayshi army. At Uhud (625), seeing some Muslims leave the hill of Aynayn, he attacked the Muslim army from the rear and changed the outcome of the battle; at the Trench (627) too he led the Qurayshi horse. In the year of Hudaybiya (628), commanding a cavalry unit of 200, he saw the Prophet lead the prayer of fear and is reported to have said, "This man is protected." On reading the letter of his brother al-Walid, who told him that the Messenger of God had asked after him, he resolved to embrace Islam; with Uthman ibn Talha and Amr ibn al-As he went to Medina on 1 Safar 8 (31 May 629) and pronounced the testimony of faith in the Prophet's Mosque. The Prophet prayed for him and gave him a house near the Mosque. His first battle as a Muslim was Mu'ta (September 629), where he saved the Muslim army from annihilation by the Byzantine army; on his return to Medina the Prophet gave him the title Sayf Allah . At the conquest of Mecca (11 January 630) he commanded the right wing and broke the only resistance offered during the conquest, and then destroyed the idol al-Uzza in the valley of Nakhla. He was wounded at Hunayn, was sent to Dumat al-Jandal during the Tabuk expedition (630), went in July 631 with 400 men to Najran to invite the Banu al-Harith ibn Ka'b to Islam, and took part in the Farewell Pilgrimage the same year. Under Abu Bakr he stood with the caliph against the apostasy movements. After Dhu al-Qassa he was made commander-in-chief of an army of 4000; on 19 September 632 he marched against Tulayha, a claimant to prophethood, and prevailed at Buzakha. He then went to al-Butah to fight the Banu Tamim, who refused to pay zakat, and from there to Yamama, where he defeated the forces of Musaylima the Liar at the battle of Aqraba, which ended early in 633. Abu Bakr then sent him to Iraq to aid al-Muthanna ibn Haritha al-Shaybani, who was fighting the Sasanians; thus the first step of the age of conquests was taken. His core force of 2000 reached 5000 with al-Muthanna's troops. He conquered al-Ubulla, made a treaty with the people of Ullays on 3 Rajab 12 (13 September 633), and took al-Hira, al-Anbar and Ayn al-Tamr, bringing the lands from the Gulf to Ayn al-Tamr into the Islamic state. On the caliph's order he turned to Syria; with a cavalry unit of 700-800 he crossed the desert between Quraqir and Suwa in five days and defeated the Ghassanids at Marj Rahit (23 April 634). At Bosra he joined Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, Shurahbil ibn Hasana and Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan and became commander-in-chief of the united army. At Ajnadayn (30 July 634) he won a great victory over a Byzantine army of 80.000; he prevailed again at Fihl (23 January 635), conquered Damascus in September 635, and won the battle of Yarmuk (20 August 636). Meanwhile the new caliph Umar removed him from the supreme command and appointed Abu Ubayda in his place; thereafter Khalid took part, under Abu Ubayda's orders and as commander of the vanguard, in the conquest of Homs, Hama, Shayzar and Qinnasrin. After Abu Ubayda's death he served under no one else, and died in the year 21 (642) at Homs , where he had spent the rest of his life. His grave is there. Very little is known of his wives and children; he is reported to have had some forty children, nearly all of whom died in the plague in Syria, the best known being Abd al-Rahman, governor of Homs. He transmitted eighteen hadiths from the Prophet; among those who narrated from him are Abd Allah ibn Qays, Qays ibn Abi Hazim and al-Miqdad ibn Ma'dikarib. Three swords attributed to him, named mirsab, edlak and qurtubi , are preserved in the Topkapı Palace Museum.

HumusDied 21 AHView
Tābiʿūn

Ka'b al-Ahbar

A Successor (tabi'i) known for his reports concerning the Children of Israel; raised as the son of a Jewish scholar, after his conversion he was remembered among the Companions and Successors for his wide knowledge of the culture of the People of the Book — a scholar from Yemen. His full name is Abu Ishaq Ka'b b. Mati' b. Haynu' al-Himyari al-Yamani . He was born around the year 550 CE. He belonged to the Dhu Ru'ayn (Dhu al-Kala') lineage living in Yemen; his grandfather's name is also given as Haysu' or Amr. He came to be called Ka'b al-Ahbar because of his wide learning ( hibr/habr , plural ahbar ); according to a less common report the name comes from his writing with ink ( hibr ), and he is also called Ka'b al-Hibr . According to a report transmitted by Ibn Sa'd, his father, a Jewish scholar, wrote out part of the Torah, gave it to him and advised him to be content with it, then locked his other books in a cupboard and made his son promise not to read them. There are differing reports as to when he embraced Islam (see Multiple Perspectives). According to the same report of Ibn Sa'd, when Islam had spread everywhere he read the books his father had hidden, and on seeing in them the attributes of the Messenger of God and his community he became a Muslim, and al-Abbas took him under his protection. The source notes that some strange stories were also fabricated about his conversion. He transmitted hadith from Companions such as Umar and Suhayb al-Rumi, and also reported from the Prophet in mursal form. It is related that at first he told stories ( qasas ), gave this up on hearing the hadith forbidding storytelling to those not appointed by the head of state, and resumed it when Mu'awiya gave him permission. It is reported that Umar took interest in what he related, asked him for counsel and followed his advice. He settled in Hims and took part in the wars against the Byzantines. According to the report the source adopts, he died in Hims in the year 32 (652-53), having passed 100 years of age; the other reports on the date and place are given under Multiple Perspectives. His Circle of Influence — Among the Companions, Umar, Abd Allah b. Umar, Abd Allah b. Abbas, Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr, Abu Hurayra and Mu'awiya b. Abi Sufyan benefited from him; Successors such as Umar's two freedmen Aslam and Abu Rafi' al-Sa'igh, Malik b. Amir, Sa'id b. al-Musayyab, Ata' b. Yasar, and his stepsons Tubay' al-Himyari and Nawf b. Fadala also transmitted from him. His reports appear in Malik's al-Muwatta' and in the Sunan of al-Darimi, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasa'i. According to the source, part of the information in many works of later periods rests on reports transmitted from Ka'b: the historical material in Ibn al-Jawzi's Fada'il al-Quds and Diya' al-Din al-Maqdisi's Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis , the reports on the prophets in al-Kisa'i's Qisas al-anbiya' and al-Tha'labi's Ara'is al-majalis , the history of Mecca in al-Azraqi's Akhbar Makka , the accounts of the creation and of the prophets in Ibn al-Athir's al-Kamil , as well as part of the material in the works of al-Mutahhar b. Tahir al-Maqdisi and Ibn Khaldun. Modern studies have also been devoted to him: Israel Wolfensohn wrote a doctoral thesis on his place in hadith and in Islamic legendary literature (Frankfurt 1933), Muhammad Ali Abu Hamda compiled the views about him (Amman 1411/1991), and Moshe Perlmann published two narrative texts about his conversion (1953, 1954). His Poetry and Sufi Line — Ka'b was not a poet; this section gives his line as a transmitter. As the source relates, al-Dhahabi says that because he possessed an unaltered copy of the Torah he knew well the books of the Jews and the sound and fabricated reports in them. Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani likewise quotes extensively from this copy inherited from his father, said to be unaltered, especially on the necessity of believing in the final prophet and the merit of his community. Reports have also been transmitted that Ka'b destroyed this copy some time before his death, and that the Companions, seeing that some of his interpretations of Qur'anic verses based on it agreed with the hadith, approved of him. The reports of the Isra'iliyyat type that he transmitted lie at the centre of the debate over his reliability (see Multiple Perspectives). His Works — The source records no work written by Ka'b himself; it speaks of texts attributed to him. Brockelmann mentions a Hadith Dhi al-Kifl fabricated in the name of Ka'b al-Ahbar (Bulaq 1283), and al-Zirikli a two-volume work entitled Sirat al-Iskandar . The work called Kitab Ka'b al-Ahbar is seen to consist of reports attributed to him (Süleymaniye Library, Hacı Mahmud Efendi, no. 4923). His Tomb and Complex — Ka'b's own article says nothing of a tomb structure. The article HUMUS lists the Maqam of Ka'b al-Ahbar among the other tombs worth mentioning in the city after the tomb attributed to Khalid b. al-Walid; it gives no further information on the building.

HumusDied 32 AHView
Companion

Wahshi ibn Harb

An Abyssinian slave who killed Hamza at Uhud and later embraced Islam; a Companion. He is also remembered for killing Musaylima the Liar at the Battle of Yamama. His full name is Abu Dasma (Abu Harb) Wahshi ibn Harb al-Habashi . He was of Abyssinian origin and a slave of Jubayr ibn Mut'im, one of the notables of Quraysh; the reports that he belonged to other men are given under the Multiple Views. How he came to Mecca is not known. During the preparations for the Battle of Uhud, Jubayr ibn Mut'im promised to set him free if he killed Hamza, who had killed Jubayr's uncle Tu'ayma at Badr. The daughter of al-Harith ibn Amir, who had been killed at Badr, also asked him, as the price of his freedom, to kill either Muhammad, Ali or Hamza. Hind bint Utba, the wife of Abu Sufyan, announced that she would give whoever killed Hamza — who had killed her father, brother and uncle at Badr — all her jewellery together with 10 gold pieces. Wahshi set out from Mecca for Uhud with the army of the polytheists; of the slaves in the Quraysh army, all but Wahshi and Su'ab had been assigned to rear duties. Once the fighting began he watched Hamza, hiding now behind a rock, now behind a tree. When Hamza, having fought and killed Siba' ibn Abd al-Uzza behind a rock, came near the place where he was, he hurled his spear and killed him; he then cut out his liver and took it to Hind. Jubayr ibn Mut'im set him free, and Hind gave him her jewellery and the 10 gold pieces. When Wahshi later became a Muslim, he said that he had had no other way to gain his freedom than to kill Hamza, and that he had taken part in Uhud for that reason alone. He is recorded as the first to bring the news of the victory at Uhud to Mecca, climbing a hill at al-Hajun and informing the Meccan polytheists of the battle. He went on living in Mecca; he also took part in the Battle of the Trench, in which he killed al-Tufayl ibn al-Nu'man al-Ansari with his spear. After the conquest of Mecca he fled to Ta'if, for he had been excluded from the general amnesty together with some ten people known for their hostility to the Prophet and the Muslims. When the people of Ta'if decided to send a delegation to Medina, he thought of going to Damascus, to Yemen or elsewhere; meanwhile he was told that Muhammad pardoned those who entered Islam, so he decided to go to Medina, and became a Muslim in the presence of the Messenger of God in the Prophet's Mosque. The sources contain details of this meeting. When Wahshi voiced his hesitation, saying he was a sinner, the Messenger of God recited the verse “And whoever repents and does righteous deeds, he indeed turns to God with true repentance” (al-Furqan 25/71). When Wahshi asked whether God would forgive his sin, the Messenger of God answered with the verse “God does not forgive that partners be associated with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills” (al-Nisa 4/116). When Wahshi said that he did not know whether God would will to forgive him, the Prophet recited “Say: O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of God; indeed God forgives all sins. Indeed He is the Forgiving, the Merciful” (al-Zumar 39/53), and Wahshi thereupon entered Islam. The Messenger of God, who asked him at this time to relate how he had killed his uncle, was deeply grieved as he listened; nevertheless he did not punish Wahshi, but only asked him to keep out of his sight, since he did not wish to be reminded of his uncle's killing. After this meeting he left Medina. In the year 12 (633) he took part in the Battle of Yamama under Khalid ibn al-Walid and killed with his spear Musaylima the Liar, who had claimed prophethood. It is reported that Wahshi, overjoyed at this, said: “By killing Hamza I shed the blood of the best of men, and by killing Musaylima I did away with the worst of men.” He then took part with Khalid ibn al-Walid in the Battle of Yarmuk and was present at the conquest of Damascus. He lived for a time in Damascus, took part in the conquest of Homs and settled there. It is reported that in Umar's time the prescribed punishment was applied to him for drinking wine, and that when he persisted he was struck from the register. He lived in Homs until his death; almost all the sources record that he died in the time of Uthman (644-656). His Circle of Influence — One hadith of his appears in each of the works of al-Bukhari and Ahmad ibn Hanbal; Ubayd Allah ibn Adi, Ja'far ibn Amr al-Damri and his son Harb transmitted from him. Ibn Sa'd (d. 230/845) states that Wahshi was the first to wear burnished garments in Homs and that his line continued down to Ibn Sa'd's own time.

HumusDied 40 AHView

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