Mukhtasar Muslim

Abu Ishaq says: I heard Sayyiduna Bara’ bin Azib (may Allah be pleased with him) say that Sayyiduna Abu Bakr Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him) came to my father’s (Azib’s) house and bought a saddle from him. He said, “Tell your son to carry this saddle with me to my house.” My father told me to carry the saddle, so I picked it up, and my father also went out with Sayyiduna Abu Bakr to receive its price. My father asked, “O Abu Bakr! What did you do that night when you went out with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)?” (i.e., when you set out from Makkah to Madinah for migration). Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “We traveled all night until morning came, and it was exactly midday when there was no one traveling on the road. We saw a large rock ahead, whose shadow was on the ground and where the sunlight had not reached. We stopped there. I went to the rock and leveled a place with my hand so that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) could rest in its shade. Then I spread a cloak (sheet) there and said, ‘O Messenger of Allah! Please sleep, and I will keep watch around you for any enemy (to see if anyone is searching for us).’ Then I saw a shepherd coming with his goats toward the same rock with the same intention as ours (i.e., to rest in its shade). I met him and asked, ‘O boy, whose slave are you?’ He replied, ‘I am the slave of a man from the people of Madinah (i.e., Makkah).’ I asked, ‘Are your goats milk-giving?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Will you give us some milk?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ Then he brought a goat, and I said, ‘Clean its udder from hair, dirt, and dust so that these things do not get into the milk.’ (The narrator said:) I saw Bara’ bin Azib striking and dusting one hand over the other. Anyway, the boy milked a little milk into a wooden bowl, and I had a bucket with me in which there was water for the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to drink and perform ablution. Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Then I came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and I disliked waking him from sleep, but I saw that he had woken up by himself. I poured water over the milk until it became cool, then I said, ‘O Messenger of Allah! Please drink this milk.’ He drank until I was pleased. Then he said, ‘Is it not time to depart?’ I said, ‘It is.’ Then we set out after the sun had declined, and Suraqah bin Malik pursued us (and he was a disbeliever at that time), and we were on hard ground. He said, ‘O Messenger of Allah! The disbelievers have caught up with us.’ The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, ‘Do not worry, Allah is with us.’ Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) supplicated against Suraqah, and his horse sank into the ground up to its belly (even though the ground was hard). He said, ‘I know that you both have supplicated against me. Now I swear by Allah that I will turn away anyone who comes searching for you. Pray for me (that Allah relieves me from this punishment).’ The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed to Allah, and he was released and returned. Whenever a disbeliever met him, he would say, ‘I have already searched this way.’ In short, whoever met him, Suraqah would turn him away. Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said that Suraqah fulfilled his promise.