Islam > Scholars > Bilal ibn Rabah
Biography of Bilal ibn Rabah as related by al-Dhahabi in Siyar A lam al-Nubala. He died in 20 H.
Updated on 14 September 2026 at 8:10 PM
📖 15 min readI say: his son Amr was counted among the Companions; likewise his father deserves to be counted among the Companions: he embraced Islam, as we mentioned; but it has not reached us that he emigrated, and he did not see the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him.
No. 76: Bilal ibn Rabah, may Allah be pleased with him.
The freedman of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq.
His mother is Hamama.
He is the muezzin of the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him.
Of the earliest predecessors who were tortured for Allah; he was present at Badr; the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, bore witness for him to being designated for Paradise, and his hadith is in the books.
Those who narrated from him: Ibn Umar, Abu Uthman al-Nahdi, al-Aswad, Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Layla, and a group.
His merits are numerous: the hafiz Ibn Asakir collected them in full.
He lived seventy years.
It is said: he was Abyssinian.
It is said: of the freedmen of the Hijaz.
On his death there are several views, one of which: he died at Darayya, in year twenty.
Asim: from Zirr, from Abd Allah:
The first to make their Islam manifest were seven: the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, and Abu Bakr, and Ammar, and his mother Sumayya, and Bilal, and Suhayb, and al-Miqdad.
As for the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, and Abu Bakr: Allah protected them through their clan.
As for the rest, the polytheists seized them;
they clad them in iron armors and stretched them out in the sun; none of them escaped until they came to what they wanted, except Bilal: he deemed himself worthless for Allah, and he became worthless to his people; they gave him the little slaves: they would make him go around in the valleys of Mecca while he said: One, One.
He has another sahih isnad.
Abu Hayyan al-Timi: from Abu Zur'a, from Abu Hurayra:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, said to Bilal, at the morning prayer: "Tell me of the most hopeful deed you have done in Islam, for I heard last night the patter of your sandals before me in Paradise."
He said: "I did no deed more hopeful than this: I never perform complete ablution at any hour of night or day without praying to my Lord what has been prescribed for me to pray."
Husayn ibn Waqid: Ibn Burayda narrated to us: I heard my father say:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, rose in the morning and called Bilal, and said: "By what have you preceded me to Paradise? I never entered Paradise without hearing your rattling before me: I entered Paradise yesterday, and I heard your rattling before me, and I came upon a palace of gold, and I said: whose is this?
They said: Umar's."
Bilal said: "I never made the call to prayer without praying two rak'as, and never did impurity befall me without performing ablution; and I saw that Allah had upon me two rak'as: I bowed in them."
He said: "It is by them."
Hammad ibn Salama: from Thabit:
From Anas, as a stopped report: "I entered Paradise and heard a rattling.
I said: what is this?
It was said: Bilal."
Umar a ibn Zadhan: from Thabit, from Anas:
That the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, said: "The forerunners are four: I am the forerunner of the Arabs, Salman the forerunner of the Persians, Bilal the forerunner of the Abyssinians, Suhayb the forerunner of the Rum."
Al-Mas'udi: from al-Qasim ibn Abd al-Rahman, who said:
The first to make the call to prayer was Bilal.
Ibn al-Munkadir: from Jabir: Umar said:
"Abu Bakr is our master: he freed Bilal, our master."
Umar ibn Hamza: from Salim:
That a poet praised Bilal ibn Abd Allah ibn Umar, and said:
"And Bilal, the slave of Allah, is the best of Bilals [...]"
Ibn Umar said: "You lie; rather: Bilal, the slave of the Messenger of Allah, is the best of Bilals."
And in the hadith of Amr ibn Abasa: I said: "Who followed you?"
He said: "A free man and a slave."
With him were: Abu Bakr and Bilal.
On the kunya of Bilal there are three sayings: Abu Abd al-Karim, Abu Abd Allah and Abu Amr.
The hafiz Abu al-Qasim transmitted them.
He said: those who narrated from him: Abu Bakr, Umar, Usama ibn Zayd, Ibn Umar, Ka'b ibn Ujra, al-Sunabihi, al-Aswad, Abu Idris al-Khawlani, Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, Ibn Abi Layla, al-Hakam ibn Mina and Abu Uthman al-Nahdi.
Ayyub ibn Sayyar, one of the lost ones, said: from Muhammad ibn al-Munkadir, from Jabir, from Abu Bakr, from Bilal:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, said: "Rise at dawn: it bears the greatest reward."
Muhammad ibn Sa'd said: Bilal ibn Abd Allah was of the freedmen of al-Sarat; his mother Hamama belonged to the Banu Jumah.
Al-Bukhari said: Bilal is the brother of Khalid and Ghufra, muezzin of the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him; he died in Syria. And he mentioned the three kunyas.
Ata al-Khurasani said: I was with Ibn al-Musayyib, who mentioned Bilal and said:
"He was firm in his religion, and he was tortured for Allah; he met the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, who said: were there anything with us, we would buy Bilal."
Abu Bakr met al-Abbas and said: "Buy me Bilal."
Al-Abbas bought him and sent him to Abu Bakr, who freed him.
Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Tahhan: my father informed, from Dawud, from al-Sha'bi, who said:
Bilal's masters would lay him on his belly and crush him, saying: "Your religion is al-Lat and al-Uzza."
He would say: "My Lord is Allah, One, One; and were I to know a word feinter for you than this, I would say it."
Abu Bakr passed by them; they said: "Buy your brother in your religion."
He bought him for forty uqiyya and freed him.
They said: "Had he been content with one uqiyya we would have sold him to you."
He said: "By Allah, had you accepted nothing but so-and-so much," for an abundant thing, "I would have bought him."
And in the sira: Abu Bakr bought him from Umayya ibn Khalaf for a black polytheist slave.
Hisham ibn Urwa: from his father, who said:
Warqa ibn Nawfal passed by Bilal while he was tortured for Islam, his back pressed to the boulder, while he said: One, One.
He said: "O Bilal, patience! By Him in whose hand is my soul, if you kill him I shall make of him a visited shrine."
This is mursal, and Warqa did not live to that time.
Hisham: from Ibn Sirin:
That when Bilal's masters prevailed over his Islam, they stretched him in the sun, tortured him, and kept saying: "Your god is al-Lat and al-Uzza."
And he said: "One, One."
It reached Abu Bakr, who came to them and said: "Why do you kill him? He does not obey you."
They said: "Buy him."
He bought him for seven uqiyya and freed him.
And he informed the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, who said: "The companionship, O Abu Bakr."
He said: "I have freed him."
Ibn Uyayna: from Isma'il, from Qays, who said:
Abu Bakr bought Bilal while he was sunk into the rock, for five uqiyya of gold.
They said: "Had you been content with one uqiyya we would have sold him to you."
He said: "Had you accepted nothing but a hundred uqiyya, I would have taken him."
Its isnad is strong.
Isra'il: from al-Miqdam ibn Shurayh, from his father, from Sa'd, who said:
We were six with the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him.
The polytheists said: "Drive these from you, lest they dare against us."
There were I, Ibn Mas'ud, Bilal, a man of Hudhayl, and two others.
Allah then sent down: "And drive not away those who call upon their Lord...", the two verses of Surah al-An'am: 52, 53.
Ibn Ulayya: from Yunus, from al-Hasan:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, said: "Bilal is the forerunner of the Abyssinians."
Aisha said: when the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, arrived in Medina, Abu Bakr and Bilal caught fever; Abu Bakr, when the fever seized him, would say:
Every man is at morning among his folk
And death is nearer than the strap of his sandal
And Bilal, when it left him, would raise his little finger and say:
Would that I knew whether I shall spend a night
In a valley with idhkhir and jalil around me
And whether I shall one day come again to the waters of Majanna
And whether Shama and Tafil be shown to me
O Allah, curse Utba, Shayba and Umayya ibn Khalaf,
As they brought us out of our land to the land of pestilence
Al-Hasan ibn Salih: from Abu Rabi'a, from al-Hasan, from Anas: the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, said: "Paradise longed for three: Ali, Ammar and Bilal."
Abu Rabi'a, Umar ibn Rabi'a al-Iyadi, is weak.
Hussam ibn Misk: from Qatada, from al-Qasim ibn Rabi'a:
From Zayd ibn Arqam, raised to the Prophet: "What a good man is Bilal, master of the muezzins on the day of Resurrection; and the muezzins are, on the day of Resurrection, the longest of neck among the people."
He has other weak routes.
And it is narrated by a weak isnad, among the mursal of Kathir ibn Murra: "Bilal will be brought a she-camel of the she-camels of Paradise, and he will ride it."
Ibn al-Mubarak: from Abd al-Rahman ibn Yazid ibn Jabir:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, said: "The masters of the blacks: Luqman, the Negus, Bilal and Mihja'."
Mu'awiya ibn Salih narrated it, from al-Awza'i, disconnectedly.
Hisham ibn Urwa: from his father, who said:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, ordered Bilal, at the time of the conquest, to make the call to prayer atop the Kaaba.
Ibn Sa'd said: Isma'il ibn Abi Uways narrated to us; Abd al-Rahman ibn Sa'd ibn Ammar al-Mu'adhdhin narrated; my cousin Abd Allah ibn Muhammad narrated to me, with Ammar ibn Hafs and his brother Umar, from their fathers, from their grandfathers:
That the Negus sent three kids to the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him; he gave one to Ali, one to Umar, and kept one; Bilal would lead it before him on the two festivals until he came to the prayer place, slaughter it before him, and he would pray toward it; then he would lead it before Abu Bakr; then Sa'd al-Qaraz would lead it before Umar and Uthman.
They said: and when the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, died, Bilal came, wanting jihad, to Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, and said to him:
"O successor of the Messenger of Allah! I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, say: the best deed of the believer is jihad in the path of Allah."
Abu Bakr said: "What do you wish, O Bilal?"
He said: "I wished to keep frontier post in the path of Allah until I die."
Abu Bakr said: "I adjure you by Allah, O Bilal, by my sanctity and my right: you have grown old and weak, and my term draws near."
He remained with him until he died.
Then Umar came, and he refused him; Bilal would not,
and he said: "To whom do you see me entrust the call?"
He said: "To Sa'd: he made the call for the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him."
Umar entrusted it to Sa'd and his descendants.
Hammad ibn Salama: from Ali ibn Zayd, from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib:
When Abu Bakr sat on the minbar on the day of Friday, Bilal said to him: "Did you free me for Allah or for yourself?"
He said: "For Allah."
He said: "Then permit me the campaign."
He permitted him; he went to Syria and died there.
Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi: Ahmad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Qurashi narrated to us; al-Walid ibn Muslim narrated; Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz informed me, with Ibn Jabir and others:
That Bilal made the call for no one after the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, and intended jihad; Abu Bakr intended to restrain him.
He said: "If you freed me for Allah, then leave my way."
He said: he was in Syria, until Umar came to al-Jabiya; the Muslims asked Umar to ask Bilal to call for them.
He asked him; he called one day, and no day was seen wherein he wept more than that day, from his remembrance of the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him.
Al-Walid said: and we see that the call of the people of Syria, from that day, derives from his call.
Hisham ibn Sa'd: from Zayd ibn Aslam, from his father, who said:
We came to Syria with Umar; Bilal made the call to prayer; the people remembered the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, and I saw no day of more weeping than it.
Abu Ahmad al-Hakim: Muhammad ibn al-Fayd informed, at Damascus; Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Sulayman ibn Abi al-Darda narrated to us; my father narrated to me, from my grandfather Sulayman, from Umm al-Darda, from Abu al-Darda, who said:
When Umar entered Syria, Bilal asked that he confirm him in it, and he did.
He said: "And my brother is Abu Ruhayra, between whom and me the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, made brotherhood"; he settled at Darayya in the Hawlan; he and his brother came to a clan of Hawlan and said:
"We have come to you as suitors; we were unbelievers and Allah guided us, slaves and Allah freed us, poor and Allah enriched us: if you marry us, praise to Allah; if you refuse us, there is no power nor strength but by Allah."
They married them.
Then Bilal saw the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, in his sleep, saying: "What is this estrangement, O Bilal? Is it not time you visited me?"
He awoke grieved, mounted his ride, set out for Medina, came to the grave of the Prophet, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, and began weeping by it, rubbing his face upon it; al-Hasan and al-Husayn came; he began embracing them and kissing them.
They said to him: "O Bilal, we long to hear your call."
He did so: he climbed the roof and stood.
When he said: Allah is greater, Allah is greater, Medina shook.
When he said: I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, its trembling increased.
When he said: I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, the mature women came out of their apartments.
They said: "The Messenger of Allah has been raised."
No day of more weeping men and women was ever seen in Medina, after the Messenger of Allah, peace and the salutation of Allah be upon him, than that day.
Its isnad is soft, and it is strange.
Qutayba: al-Layth narrated to us, from Yahya ibn Sa'id, who said:
Umar mentioned the merit of Abu Bakr,
and began describing his virtues.
Then he said: "And this is our master Bilal: one virtue of his virtues."
Abu Hisham al-Rifa'i: Ibn Fudayl narrated to us; Isma'il narrated, from Qays, who said:
It reached Bilal that some people preferred him over Abu Bakr; he said: "How do they prefer me over him: I am only one virtue of his virtues!"
Al-Waqidi: Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz narrated to us, from Mak houl, who said:
One who had seen Bilal narrated to me: "A brown man, very dark, thin, tall, with a curved nose, abundant hair, slight cheeks, with many white blotches; and he did not change."
It is said: Bilal was the table-companion of Abu Bakr.
Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz said: when Bilal was at the point of death, he said:
Tomorrow we shall meet the beloved ones
Muhammad and his party
It is related that his wife said: "Woe to me!"
He said: "Rather, rejoice."
Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Timi, Ibn Ishaq, Abu Umar al-Darir and a group say:
Bilal died in year twenty, at Damascus.
Al-Waqidi said: he was buried at Bab al-Saghir, and he was seventy years old.
Ali ibn Abd Allah al-Tamimi said: he was buried at Bab Kisan.
Ibn Zayd said: he was carried from Darayya and buried at Bab Kisan.
It is said: he died in the year [...]
This Companion also has a full Sira page: Bilal Ibn Rabah.
Depending on the sources and the transliteration styles, the name is also written: Bilal, Bilal ibn Rabah, Bilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi, Bilal the muezzin of the Prophet, Bilal al-Habashi, Bilal the freedman of Abu Bakr. All these spellings refer to the same person, as related by the hafiz al-Dhahabi.