Are We Not in Haste?

Khabbab ibn al-Aratt (ra) was a blacksmith and a slave, among the very earliest believers, and his back told the story of those years: his mistress would press heated iron to it, and the polytheists once pinned him onto coals until, he said, the fat of his back put the fire out. He survived to old age, and would show the scars quietly when asked about the early days.

One day in those crushing years, the believers' endurance ran thin. Khabbab (ra) came to the Prophet ﷺ, who was reclining in the shade of the Ka'bah with a cloak folded under his head, and said: will you not ask Allah to help us? Will you not pray for us?

The Prophet ﷺ sat up, his face reddening, and gave an answer that has steadied persecuted believers ever since. Among those before you, he said, a man would be seized, a pit dug for him, and a saw placed on his head splitting him in two; another would be combed with iron combs between flesh and bone; and none of it turned them from their religion. By Allah, this matter will be completed until a rider travels from San'a to Hadramawt fearing none but Allah, and the wolf for his sheep. But you are a people in haste.

It was not a refusal to pray; it was a re-sizing of the believers' clocks. They were not the first to suffer for tawhid and would not be the last, and the promise was certain: the religion would prevail. Khabbab (ra) lived to see that rider's road become real, and died just before the trials of a later age, saying he feared the reward of his sufferings had been given to him early in this world's ease.