Jabir ibn Abdullah
607 CE–697 CE · Medina
Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansari was a Companion (sahabi) of the Prophet Muhammad from the Ansar — the "Helpers," the Muslims native to Medina (then Yathrib). He belonged to the Khazraj tribe and is traditionally said to have been born about fifteen years before the Hijra (around 607 CE), which would make him a youth when Islam reached his city. Tradition holds that he took part, while still young, in the Pledge of al-Aqaba, the early oath sworn by Medinans to the Prophet. His father, Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn Haram, is reported to have been killed at the Battle of Uhud.
Jabir is remembered above all as one of the most prolific transmitters of hadith — reports of the Prophet's words and deeds — with well over a thousand traditions attributed to him in Sunni collections, and he was regarded as a leading authority on religious law (fiqh) in Medina in his later years. A famous biographical anecdote, told in the hadith literature, describes him riding a month to Syria to hear a single tradition from another Companion.
He lived to great age and is said to have lost his sight late in life. He is counted among the last Companions to die in Medina, generally placed around 78 AH (697–98 CE), though sources differ. Shia tradition holds him in special honour as a loyal devotee of the Prophet's family (Ahl al-Bayt) and as the first to make the Arba'in visitation to the grave of al-Husayn at Karbala.
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Medina
What they did here
Born in Yathrib (Medina) about 15 years before the Hijra (traditionally c. 607 CE) into the Khazraj clan of the Ansar. The precise birth date is a traditional estimate, not firmly attested. His father, Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn Haram, was reportedly killed at Uhud, near Medina.
About Medina
Medina (al-Madina, formerly Yathrib), in the Hejaz of western Saudi Arabia, is the city to which the Prophet Muhammad emigrated in 622 (the hijra), establishing the first Muslim community; it contains his tomb and is Islam's second-holiest city. As the cradle of early Islamic law and hadith scholarship it remained a major centre of learning that drew the scholars connected here.
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Graeco-Roman world
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