If you had asked the companions of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ who their favourite reciter of the Qur'an was, who they would have wanted to crowd around and listen to for hours, who they imagined hearing again in Paradise, almost all of them would have pointed to one man. He was short and slight, with no commanding physical presence at all. But when he opened his mouth to recite, a city stopped to listen. The Prophet ﷺ himself stood at people's doors at night to hear him. The wives of the Prophet ﷺ came out of their homes to listen. And the Prophet ﷺ said of him that he had been given one of the beautiful voices of the family of David.
His name was Abu Musa al-Ash'ari (may Allah be pleased with him), and his story begins not in Makkah or Madinah, but far to the south, in a teenager's heart in Yemen that had heard a rumour worth crossing a desert for.
A teenager who went looking for the truth
His given name was Abdullah ibn Qays, but like his contemporary Abu Hurayrah, history knows him by his nickname. He was a young man in Yemen, no more than fourteen or fifteen, when traders passing through brought word of a man in Makkah who claimed to be a Prophet and was calling people to a new way. Most teenagers would have let the rumour pass. Abu Musa did not. He joined a caravan and travelled all the way from Yemen to Makkah to see for himself who this man was and what he was calling to.
When he reached the Prophet ﷺ and heard him, he embraced Islam at once. He is, in fact, one of those who accepted the faith in Makkah itself, in its earliest and hardest years. But the Prophet ﷺ did not keep him in Makkah. He sent the young man back to his own people, to a distant part of Yemen, to await further instruction and to call his tribe, the Ash'ariyun, to Islam.
And he succeeded. His family believed. His tribe believed. His own two brothers, Abu Ruhm and Abu Amir, accepted the faith at his call, and he was the youngest of the three. Even his mother, Zabiya bint Wahb, would one day come with him and die a Muslim, buried in al-Baqi. For years he waited among his people, receiving word now and then on how to pray and how to hold to the faith, until permission finally came to make the journey to Madinah.
The two boats, and the joy in Madinah
About seven years after the Hijrah, around the time of Khaybar, Abu Musa and roughly fifty of his tribe boarded a boat in the south of Yemen, meaning to sail up the coast to Madinah. But the winds turned against them. Day after day the weather pushed them off course, until they found themselves not approaching Madinah at all, but landing instead on the far shore of Abyssinia, the Christian kingdom that had once given refuge to the first Muslims who fled Makkah.
It seemed an accident. It was not. Waiting on that shore was a group of the Prophet's companions who had migrated to Abyssinia years before and were now themselves preparing to leave for Madinah. Among them was Ja'far, the cousin of the Prophet ﷺ, whom the Prophet had not seen in years. The righteous king, the Negus, had secretly embraced Islam and had quietly readied boats for Ja'far and his companions, telling them that if anything ever happened to him, they were to sail at once. So when Abu Musa's storm-tossed boat arrived, Ja'far told the newcomers what the Prophet ﷺ had told them: stay until Allah opens a way. And they stayed, until at last they all boarded together to sail for Madinah as one company.
Now picture what was about to happen. Two boats, full of people, sailing toward a shore where the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ himself would receive them. On one side, Ja'far and the long-separated emigrants of Abyssinia. On the other, this fresh group from the southern tip of Yemen, men who had never once laid eyes on the Prophet ﷺ and were trembling with anticipation to meet him. The Prophet ﷺ told the companions in Madinah that a people were coming whose hearts were even softer toward faith than their own, even though they had never met him. And as the boats neared the coast, the people aboard began to sing: tomorrow we will meet our beloved ones, Muhammad and his companions. It was the same line Bilal would whisper on his deathbed years later.
When they landed and began to greet the companions, the narrations say this was the first time the handshake, the musafaha, was practised as a group, as two communities introduced themselves to one another in joy. The Prophet ﷺ met Ja'far and kissed him on the forehead and said he did not know which gift brought him more joy, the conquest of Khaybar or the coming of Ja'far. And to Abu Musa's tribe, the Ash'ariyun, he gave a rank above those who had emigrated only once. Because their boat had drifted, because they had been carried to Abyssinia before reaching Madinah, they had become people of two migrations. You have the reward of two hijrahs, he told them: a migration to the Negus and a migration to me.
The houses you could find by their sound
Once settled in Madinah, this tribe became known for one thing above all others: the Qur'an. They came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him to recite to them, and when he did, they wept. Their love for the Book became the texture of their nights.
There is a hadith that captures it better than any description. The Prophet ﷺ said that he knew the voices of the Ash'ariyun by their Qur'an when they entered upon the night. He knew which houses in Madinah were theirs, not because he had seen them go in by day, but because of the recitation that rose from those homes after dark. Imagine that. A whole tribe so devoted to the Qur'an that the Prophet ﷺ could walk the streets of Madinah at night and say, that one is theirs, and that one, and that one, by the sound alone.
They were known for more than their recitation. If the Ash'ariyun went out together and food ran short, they would gather what little they had, divide it equally on a single cloth, and share it without complaint. The Prophet ﷺ loved this in them: their generosity, their care for one another, their attachment to the Book of Allah.
And at the head of these people was Abu Musa. The histories make a point of mentioning that he was very short and very thin, and they mention it for a reason. His stature was not what made him a giant among the companions. It was that voice. When he walked into a gathering, every head turned toward him, the way they once turned toward Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, who was also small of frame. Everything the old society had prized, height, presence, the imposing body, was being quietly set aside. What mattered now was what a man carried in his heart.
Reciting for One Listener
There is a tender moment narrated by our mother Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her). She was walking with the Prophet ﷺ at night when he stopped outside a house and began to listen to the Qur'an being recited within. Come, he told her, listen with me. And the two of them stood together at the door and listened for a long while. It was Abu Musa.
When Abu Musa later learned that the Prophet ﷺ had been standing at his door, he said that had he only known, he would have made his recitation even more beautiful for him, that he would have offered it for the Prophet ﷺ alone. But there was a wisdom in the Prophet's silence. On another night, Buraydah (may Allah be pleased with him) saw the Prophet ﷺ standing at the door of the mosque, listening to a man inside who was praying and reciting aloud in that beautiful, flowing voice. The Prophet ﷺ turned to him. Buraydah, he asked, do you think this man is showing off? Do you think he is doing this because of me? Buraydah answered that Allah and His Messenger knew best. And the Prophet ﷺ said, no, rather he is a believer who turns constantly to Allah. Then he said the words that would be remembered: he has been given one of the beautiful voices of the family of David.
This is the highest kind of praise. David, the Prophet, was given the Psalms and a voice so beautiful that the mountains and the birds would glorify Allah along with him. To say of Abu Musa that he had a portion of that gift, but given to him with the Qur'an, was to say that his recitation carried something of heaven in it. And the Prophet ﷺ was, in effect, declaring him free of the disease that can ruin a reciter: showing off. This man, the Prophet ﷺ was saying, does not recite for people. He recites for Allah.
That night, not knowing he was heard, Abu Musa was making a supplication as he prayed. He asked Allah by bearing witness that He is the One, the Self-Sufficient, who neither begets nor is begotten, with nothing comparable to Him. He was praying with the words of the surah the Prophet ﷺ loved:
Say, 'He is God the One, God the eternal. He begot no one nor was He begotten. No one is comparable to Him.'
Qur'an 112:1-4
The Prophet ﷺ swore that this man had asked Allah by a name such that, when Allah is asked by it, He answers. And when Buraydah asked permission to go and tell Abu Musa the good news, the Prophet ﷺ allowed it, and Abu Musa told Buraydah he would remain his friend forever for bringing it.
One companion who lived alongside him said he had never heard any instrument ever made, no flute, no drum, sweeter than the voice of Abu Musa, and that when he led them in prayer they would secretly hope he would recite the longest surahs, just to keep listening. This was the man the companions wished they could pray behind again and again.
The man of the Qur'an in war and in office
Abu Musa was far more than a beautiful voice. He fought in the Prophet's campaigns. In the fighting after Hunayn, his own brother Abu Amir was struck by an arrow. As he lay dying, Abu Amir asked Abu Musa to carry his greeting to the Prophet ﷺ and to ask the Prophet to seek forgiveness for him. When Abu Musa delivered the message, the Prophet ﷺ rose, made wudu, and raised his hands so high in supplication that the whiteness of his underarms showed, asking Allah to forgive Abu Amir and to place him above much of His creation. Then Abu Musa seized the moment and asked for himself too. And the Prophet ﷺ prayed for him by name: O Allah, forgive Abdullah ibn Qays his sins, and admit him on the Day of Resurrection to a noble place. To have the Prophet ﷺ ask forgiveness for you by name, by your own name, is a treasure beyond reckoning.
He was also a man of knowledge, which is rarer to combine with the gift of recitation than we might think. He was a hafiz of the entire Qur'an at a time when that was uncommon, one of those who recited the Book back to the Prophet ﷺ himself. And he became a faqih, a jurist, and a judge. When Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) was asked about the companions, he said Abu Musa had been thoroughly immersed in knowledge. The histories list him among the small handful of companions who were the judges and the muftis of that generation.
When he was sent out as a governor, first over Basra and later Kufa, he carried the Qur'an into office with him. His habit in every city was the same: after the noon prayer he would ask, is there anyone here who wants to learn the Qur'an? And he would teach until the afternoon prayer, and if people remained, until sunset. He was not content to be admired for his recitation; he gave it away. The governor of Basra, teaching the Book to whoever would come. Umar, who normally moved his governors after a single year for fear that power would corrupt them, made an exception and left Abu Musa in Basra for four, such was his trust in the man. And when Abu Musa finally left that post, he left with six hundred dirhams to his name. He had governed a province for four years and come out of it poor.
This was the man whose life was so saturated with the Qur'an that when he travelled, Mu'adh ibn Jabal once asked him how he managed his recitation on the road. Abu Musa answered that he recited standing, sitting, and even while riding, sometimes a little at a time and sometimes a great deal, but always reciting. He never put the Book down. He used to narrate the Prophet's warning that the Qur'an slips away from a person faster than a camel escapes its rope if it is not renewed, that one must keep refreshing one's covenant with it. He lived that warning. The Prophet's parting advice to him, when he sent him back to govern Yemen, was simply: keep teaching the people the Qur'an. The man embodied the saying that the best of people are those who learn the Qur'an and then teach it.
There was a verse the Prophet ﷺ once applied to Abu Musa's people, the warning to the believers that if any turned back from their faith, Allah would replace them with a people whom He loves and who love Him:
You who believe, if any of you go back on your faith, God will soon replace you with people He loves and who love Him, people who are humble towards the believers, hard on the disbelievers, and who strive in God's way without fearing anyone's reproach. Such is God's favour. He grants it to whoever He will. God has endless bounty and knowledge.
Qur'an 5:54
The Prophet ﷺ turned to Abu Musa and said, these are your people. It was a promise woven into the heart of his tribe: that the gift of faith, if it is held and lived, is exactly the love Allah describes here.
Modesty, charity, and a heart kept clean
The companions remembered Abu Musa for his modesty as much as his voice. He used to wear extra layers of plain, coarse clothing out of care that nothing of his body be exposed, and the simplicity of his dress reflected the simplicity of the life he had chosen near the Prophet ﷺ. He once told his son that if he could have seen them in those early days, walking with the Prophet ﷺ when the rain caught them and the smell of their worn wool rose around them, he would have understood the hardship they lived in to stay close to a man who chose poverty over the life of a king.
It was Abu Musa who carried to us the Prophet's words: O Abdullah ibn Qays, shall I tell you of one of the treasures of Paradise? And then the answer, that there is no power and no strength except with Allah. He was an advocate for the poor and the indebted, arguing their case before Allah and before people when he could not relieve them himself. When he visited al-Hasan ibn Ali during an illness, al-Hasan asked whether he had come for some need of his own, and Abu Musa said no, only for the sake of Allah, to visit a sick brother. And then he narrated the Prophet's promise that no believer visits another except that seventy thousand angels send blessings upon him until evening, and a garden is prepared for him in Paradise.
He was constant in fasting, too. The story is told that he was once on a boat when a voice called out over the water, seven times, with glad tidings: that whoever bears the thirst of fasting on a hot day, Allah will quench his thirst on the Day people are most desperate for water. From that day, Abu Musa said, he never again neglected to fast on a hot day. Imam adh-Dhahabi summed up the man's life by saying that leadership never changed him and the world never deluded him: he combined knowledge with action and struggle, and he kept his heart free of ill will toward anyone. That last quality, salamat al-sadr, the clean and untroubled heart, would matter most at the end of his life.
For Abu Musa lived long enough to see the fitnah, the civil strife that tore at the ummah after the rightly guided years. He narrated many of the Prophet's warnings about those trials: that whoever raises a weapon against the believers is not of them, that the best of Muslims is the one from whose tongue and hand other Muslims are safe, that the believers are to one another like a single building whose parts hold each other up. He said that they never truly understood the warning against pointing even an arrowhead at a brother until they lived to see people deliberately firing arrows at one another. He hated that strife and refused to fight against his brothers. Later, when Mu'awiyah pressed him to take office again, he declined, asking simply what he would say to his Lord when he was returned to Him. He had no appetite left for power.
When the end came, he was fainting in and out, his head in the lap of his wife. He used his last clarity not to speak of himself but to warn her gently against wailing, against tearing clothes or shaving the head in grief, the things the Prophet ﷺ had forbidden. He died at sixty-three, the same age as the Prophet ﷺ, and left behind hundreds of narrations, most of them carried on by his own children. The companions had asked Allah to let them hear his voice again in Paradise. We can ask for the same.
What Abu Musa's life asks of our faith
It is easy to read about a man with a voice like that and conclude that his story has nothing to do with us. Most of us cannot recite the way he did. But the gift was never really the point, and to stop at admiring it would be to miss what his life is asking of our own iman.
Look again at the night the Prophet ﷺ stood at his door. Abu Musa did not know anyone was listening. He recited that beautifully into an empty night, for an audience of One. And when he learned, afterward, that the Prophet ﷺ had heard him, his instinct was to wish he had made it even better, not because he was caught, but because he loved the listener. That is the whole secret of the man. The Prophet ﷺ declared him free of showing off precisely because Abu Musa was not performing for people; he was pouring out his heart to Allah whether anyone heard or not. This is the quality to take, and it is a quality every one of us can have, however ordinary our gifts: to do the deed for Allah alone, the same in private as in public, content that He has heard it even if no human being ever will. Ask yourself how much of your worship would survive if no one were watching. His survived completely, because none of it had ever been for them.
See, too, how he never put the Book down. Standing, sitting, riding, in poverty, in office, in war, the Qur'an was always on his tongue, and he never stopped teaching it to anyone who would learn. He understood that faith is not held by a single act of belief but by a covenant renewed daily, or else it slips away like an untied camel. Your own iman is the same. It will not hold itself. It asks to be refreshed every day, in your prayer, in your recitation, in the small returning to Allah that you make when the world pulls you elsewhere. And it asks to be given away. You may not be a hafiz, but there is someone near you who cannot yet read a line of the Book, and Abu Musa, a great companion and a governor, was never too important to sit down after the noon prayer and teach them. Neither are we.
And there is his clean heart at the end, the refusal to lift a weapon against his brothers, the choice to keep his hands empty of strife so that he could face his Lord with nothing on his back. In an age as quick to anger and division as ours, that is no small thing. He asks us whether we are willing to be, as the Prophet ﷺ described the best of believers, people from whose tongue and hand others are safe. The concrete good is within reach today: guard your tongue about an absent brother, visit someone who is sick for no reason but Allah, give quietly to someone in debt, recite a portion of the Book tonight for no ears but His. None of it requires a beautiful voice. All of it requires a heart turned toward Allah.
He spent his life carrying the Qur'an, and the Qur'an carried him: to the rank of two migrations, to the prayer of the Prophet ﷺ for forgiveness by name, to a place the companions hoped to find again in the Gardens. May Allah be pleased with Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, soften our hearts toward His Book as He softened theirs, make our worship sincere for Him alone, and let us hear that voice reciting in Paradise.
This chapter follows the account of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari (RA) in Dr. Omar Suleiman's series The Firsts (Yaqeen Institute). Qur'an translations are from M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (112:1-4, 5:54). Where the histories carry more than one narration, the most widely reported has been followed.