Ammar Alshukry – The woman who described the Prophet Vividly
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Probably one of the most descriptive hadith that
describe Rasulullah out of everybody
is the hadith of which
is interesting because she only saw him once.
She only saw him once.
Physical beauty that's appropriate for the messenger of
Allah salallahu alayhi wa sallam. It's not necessarily
like the beauty of Yusuf.
It was a beauty that was appropriate for
someone who is leading battles and everything that
you learn about the description of the prophet
is that he was very,
he he was very strong.
The his joints are strong. His his
broad shoulders,
fleshy hands,
broad joints,
When they're describing his beauty, they're describing the
beauty of a person who is a statesman,
a person who is leading military campaigns.
It's not like, it's not like a a
pretty beauty necessarily.
In any case, Umma'abat,
she sees the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
once,
and she saw him when he was on
his trip from Mecca to Medina when he
was migrating.
And he's with Abu Bakr, and he's with
their companion.
And they come upon the tent of Ummehbeth,
and Ummehbeth,
she was a Bedouin. She had her husband
had went out with whatever goats they had
for pasture.
And
these people come to her tent,
and they ask if there's any meat for
them to buy, and they ask if there's
any milk for them to drink. And she
says, no. I'm sorry. I don't have anything.
Everything's gone out. And so the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam sees one goat that stayed
behind them. He said, what about that one?
She said, that stayed behind because it's so
frail.
It's got nothing.
And so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said, do you mind if I milk it?
And she says, if you can get any
milk out of it, sure.
Bismillah. So the prophet
commands for a bowl, he sits down,
and
he,
the udder fills with milk. And the prophet
milks
and he gives for all 3 of them
to drink, including and he was the final
one to drink.
They leave.
Abu Mahabad comes home,
her husband. And remember, they're fugitives. Quresh is
chasing them while they're going through this. The
prophet
leaves, Abu Mahabat comes,
and he sees Umabat's
bowl filled with milk. He says, Umabat, what
is this? She says,
A blessed man came.
And then he says to her, describe him
to me. Who is this guy?
And then she describes with this description,
and it's a beautiful description.
She says the first thing she says is
He was
he had, his cleanliness
is like,
which is cleanliness.
She says his cleanliness was. It was apparent.
First thing she noticed about him. Which is
also the first thing that Jibril alaihis sal,
that Umar noticed about Jibril.
When Jibril showed up, Umar says a man
came whose clothes were really white and his
hair was really black. That's what he noticed
about him. Because it is very difficult. You're
traveling in the desert. How do you stay
clean?
How do you stay clean in the desert?
And so when the prophet
shows up, she says,
His face was luminous.
His
his his his features were beautiful.
And then she says,
He didn't have a protruding
stomach.
His chest and stomach were flat.
And he didn't have a small head.
The Arabs used to consider that a small
head indicated a small intellect. Small head, small
brain.
Don't look at the person next to you.
And they used to consider that,
they used to consider that a big head.
They used to consider that a big head
was a big intellect. Bigger the skull, the
bigger the brain.
Okay? But she says she said, he didn't
have a small head. He had a flat
chest, flat stomach. He didn't have a small
head.
She says, he was was wasim. Wasim means
handsome.
Wasim means well proportioned.
Everything was well proportioned. He didn't have like,
you know, some people their legs are too
long, their neck is too long, their arms
are too long. He was he was just
He was well proportioned.
He had wide eyes. And the Arabs loved
wide eyes.
It was a it was a big symbol
of beauty. He had wide eyes.
And his eyelashes were long.
So wide eyes,
long eyelashes,
and he had a raspiness to his voice.
Not too raspy, but there was some raspiness
there.
And his his,
his neck was long as well.
Also beautiful.
And his beard was thick. His beard was
thick. And we know that the beard of
the prophet
used to cover his chest. It used to
cover his chest.
The prophet
beard was so broad and it was so
big
that the Sahaba radhiallahu alaihi wa sallam could
they recognized that his lips were moving in
the silent prayers because of they could see
the movement of his beard. So it's obviously
going beyond his neck to the point where
they could see from behind
the movement of his beard indicating the movement
of his lips in a silent prayer.
Then she says,
means
that the whiteness of a person's,
eyes
is very white and the blackness of a
person's eyes is very black. So that's also
a sign of beauty.
It's the same concept.
So he's akhwar akhal. Akhal
comes from quhul.
So he looked like he was wearing quhul
on his eyelashes, but it was natural. He
wasn't wearing eyelash he wasn't wearing quhul,
but his
his there was a darkness to his lashes.
Means the the eyebrows that he had were
arching. So he had arching eyebrows and
means that he had hair in between his
eyebrows. That thin line of hair that he
had in between his eyebrows.
Now,
she saw him once
and other companions of the prophet said
that when they described the they said,
they said, actually he wasn't like that. He
didn't have hair in between his eyebrows, but
they said that it was
that it was a veil that would appear
when the prophet
was angry.
So sometimes the angle
and it looks like there's hair there, but
there wasn't hair. And Allah knows best why
she might have thought that
I I was imagining, like, what would cause
the prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, to be
angry in that moment. And Allah knows best
maybe some sort of exertion, maybe it was
the shadow, maybe it was
him milking
the the goat.
Allah
knows best. So she says,
And then she says,
She says that his hair was very black.
And this is also important. When the prophet
passed away remember, this is the Hijra, so
there's still 10 years of his life left.
He's 53 years old at this time. He
doesn't pass away until 63 years old. And
counts near the end of the prophet's
life, the amount of white hairs that he
had
were around 17 or 18. The prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam had less than 20 white
hairs.
Aisha
counted the same amount, 15, 16, 17 white
hairs,
that
had. So he was,
again, the image of someone who's
63 years old with a big white beard
or something like that, that's not Rasulullah salallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
So she says said, Shadid al Saud alaihi
had very, and the prophet
hair by the way is described
as being wavy. It was neither it was
neither silky
nor was it curly,
but it was wavy in between
being silky and being curly. And the prophet,
he had a a his skin was white
with a rosiness to it. It was white
with a rosiness. And when we say white,
we mean white for that region. We don't
mean European white, but white, according to the
Arabs,
according to the standard of the Arabs
of the Arabian Peninsula.
Cool.
Then she says
she says,
She says that when he was quiet,
he had an aura of respect.
And when he spoke,
he had baha. He had light.
There are some people who when they're quiet,
they're very respectable.
And then they talk,
and you lose respect for them. Right? That's
that's the case. That's the reality. Some people
when they talk, like, they just have such
a
a a a a a a regalness to
themselves when they're sitting and they're quiet. And
then they start talking and you're like, okay.
Then you have the opposite.
And Rasulullah
When he was quiet, he had that aura
of respect, and when he spoke it was
it was unbroken unbroken. Now she's starting she's
not describing his physical features as much now.
She's now going to speak about his personality
a little bit, and and then she's gonna
speak about his gravitas. She's gonna speak about
because that's all part of a first impression.
She's describing a first impression of the prophet
And then she says,
he says,
She says, he was the most beautiful person
from a distance.
He was the most beautiful person from a
distance, and he was the sweetest from up
close.
There are some people from a distance,
they look very beautiful,
and then they get closer
and you change your mind.
But he was the most beautiful from a
distance
and as he got closer he was,
he was the sweetest.
And then she says,
his speech was sweet. His speech was, it
was sweet. Talking to him was sweet. She
says,
He was in between. He was
He was. Is someone who doesn't give you
any words. It's like pulling teeth. How are
you? Fine.
How is the program today? Good.
What are you up to? Nothing.
Like that's an nazar. It's very very hard
to get a word out of them. It's
very difficult to talk to them. And then
hadar is like,
you just get in the car. You say,
salaam alaikum. And then you don't have to
say anything for the rest of the car.
Ride. You've done your part of the conversation.
They're off.
So she says, it is neither
talking to him is neither this nor it
is like that. She says,
Beautiful. She says, it's as if his speech
is a a a a set of beads
that are falling.
You know when beads fall, they don't jump
over each other. It's organized,
one after the other. It's very very rational,
very logical the way that Some people when
they start telling a story, they take you
all over here. You know some people?
I'm always amazed at the people who are
talking and they interrupt themselves.
You ever talk to people who interrupt themselves?
Like you're not even You don't even need
to interrupt them. They're interrupting themselves as they're
going around trying to explain something.
So she's saying no. It is
It's it's like it's like beeps falling from
a string.
It's very very in sequence, his speech. And
then she says,
and then after that she says,
he has
companions.
He has companions
who listen to his every word.
That he has companions who listen to his
every word. If he speaks,
they are quiet.
And if he commands, they raise to his
command. So now she's noticing how does everybody
respond to him, and that's also part of
his
impression.
She notices
that he's the one who's leading, and he
and there's they're in such reverence of him.
There's they're respecting him so much.
And so then when she describes that when
she describes this to her husband,
he says,
this is the man that Quresh is looking
for. This must be him. He's the one
that Quresh is looking for.
In any case, the description of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam continues, but
when
you look through it, you find that Rasulullah
Sallallahu alaihi wasallam is described as being,
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam had a broad
chest, Rasulullah Sallallahu alaihi wasallam had broad shoulders.
Had big and large joints. He had fleshy
hands. He had fleshy feet.
Had a thin line of hair in between
his chest going down until his navel,
and he was considered to be of the
most beautiful
that any of them had ever seen. And
Allah
knows best.