There is a kind of believer who is never on anyone's list. They are not at the famous battles. Their names are not carved into the great moments that the whole ummah remembers. They believed early, gave up everything, and then disappeared from the story for years, living far from the Prophet ﷺ and far from the city where the religion was being built. And then, near the very end, they come quietly back into view, on a boat, crossing the sea to be with him at last.
This chapter is about a group of them. Some we can name. Most we cannot. They were the Muslims who had fled to Abyssinia in the earliest days, and who came home only in the seventh year after the Hijrah, after they had missed almost everything. Their story sits at the edge of the seerah, and it is one of the most quietly moving parts of it.
A king who longed to see the Prophet
To understand the boats, you first have to understand the man who provided them. An-Najashi (may Allah be pleased with him), the Negus of Abyssinia, was the Christian king who had given the persecuted Muslims refuge when Makkah had become unbearable. He had wept when he heard the Qur'an recited in his court. He had protected the believers when Quraysh sent envoys demanding their return. And though he ruled a kingdom across the sea, he carried in his heart a deep longing to see the Prophet ﷺ, a man he would never meet in this life.
His protection had not come easily. At one point in his reign there was a revolt, an attempt to overthrow him, and the Muslims sheltering in his land watched it with fear, because if he fell, their refuge fell with him. An-Najashi did not leave them defenceless. He gave Ja'far ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) and his companions a ship and told them plainly: I am going to try to crush this rebellion, but if things do not work out, here is your way out. The ship is yours, already furnished, with everything you need on it, and here is a secret path to safety. Follow the news. If I am overthrown, take it and go.
This was before Madinah even existed as the believers' home. They were watching, waiting, holding their breath. And Allah gave An-Najashi victory over those who had risen against him. The Muslims rejoiced that day as they would rejoice at almost nothing else. It was said that the only thing that would surpass that joy was the victory of Badr itself.
Two boats, and the last crossing
Years passed. Madinah was established. The believers there fought at Badr, at Uhud, at the trench of Khandaq when the armies of the whole peninsula gathered to wipe them out and Allah turned them back. They marched on Khaybar and conquered it. And through all of it, a community of the earliest Muslims was still living in Abyssinia, across the water, separated from the Prophet ﷺ by years and by an ocean.
In the seventh year after the Hijrah, right after Khaybar, An-Najashi provided two boats so that the remaining Muslims of Abyssinia could finally cross the sea and come home to Madinah. Ja'far ibn Abi Talib was among them. So were many others who had left Makkah at the very beginning and had not seen the Prophet ﷺ since.
The arrival is preserved through Abu Musa al-Ash'ari (may Allah be pleased with him), himself one of the travellers. Abu Musa was from Yemen. When the news reached him that the Prophet ﷺ had migrated and settled, he and his two brothers, Abu Burda and Abu Ruhm, set out to join him, more than fifty men sailing from Yemen. Their ship was carried to Abyssinia, and there they found Ja'far and his companions still waiting. Ja'far told them what the Prophet ﷺ had commanded: that they remain there for now. "The Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent us here," he explained, "and commanded us to stay. So stay with us." And they did, until the time came, and then they all crossed together to Madinah.
When the believers from Abyssinia finally reached the Prophet ﷺ, he was overjoyed to see Ja'far. He embraced him, and he kissed him between his eyes, on the forehead. And he said a sentence that tells you exactly how he weighed a returning believer against a great military victory: "I do not know which of the two makes me happier, the coming of Ja'far, or the conquest of Khaybar."
Think about that. Khaybar was one of the most significant victories of his life. And the safe return of a group of long-lost believers stood beside it in his heart.
The first inheritance in Islam
So who were the people on those boats? Most of them are unnamed, and we will come back to that. But a few names survive, and each one carries a small, luminous detail.
There was a man named Adi ibn Nadla (may Allah be pleased with him). Adi was not only one of the first Muslims. He holds a distinction that sounds almost technical until you sit with it: he is considered the first person in Islam ever to be inherited from. He died in Abyssinia, a believer far from home, and he left behind two children, Anisa bint Adi and an-Nu'man ibn Adi (may Allah be pleased with them).
When Adi passed away, his estate passed to his son and daughter, and in that quiet moment the rules of inheritance that Allah had revealed were applied for the first time in the history of this religion. Anisa and her brother an-Nu'man were the first heirs in Islam. They then boarded the boats and came from Abyssinia to Madinah, among the passengers of that crossing.
There is something worth pausing on here. Anisa is a name many Muslims still carry today. A girl given that name can be told that it reaches back to one of the earliest believing families, to a woman who left her home for her faith, buried her father in a foreign land, and sailed across the sea to live in the shadow of the Prophet ﷺ. The smallest details of these lives are not really small. The first time a sister inherited from her father under the law of Allah, it was this sister, on her way to this city.
The keeper of the Prophet's hair
Another passenger was Ma'mar ibn Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with him). Like the others, he had longed to be close to the Prophet ﷺ, and the closeness Allah granted him was of a tender and unusual kind.
It was Ma'mar who shaved the head of the Prophet ﷺ during the Farewell Hajj. And when he had done so, the Prophet ﷺ allowed him to keep some of that blessed hair. Ma'mar treasured it. He guarded it so carefully that he became known among the people as the keeper of the Prophet's hair.
There is a whole life folded into that one role. A man flees his home for his faith. He spends long years across the sea, missing battle after battle, gathering, perhaps, the quiet fear that he had given up the chance to ever truly be near the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. And then Allah brings him home, and not only home, but close enough to be the one trusted with the Prophet's own hair, a relic he would carry as a treasure for the rest of his days. Allah does not forget the one who left everything for Him. He often returns it multiplied, in ways the believer could never have asked for.
A brother who came home
The last of the named passengers is Amir ibn Abi Waqqas (may Allah be pleased with him), the brother of the famous companion Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas (may Allah be pleased with him).
Amir was among those who escaped the persecution of Makkah by fleeing to Abyssinia. His brother Sa'd had stayed behind, and it was not easy for Sa'd, nor was it easy for Amir. Two brothers, in two different trials, in two different places, each holding to the same faith. And now, on these boats, Amir finally came home to join his brother and to join the Prophet ﷺ in Madinah after the long separation. The family that the persecution had scattered was, by the mercy of Allah, brought back together.
These are the few names that history kept. There were many others on those boats whose names are written nowhere that we can read. They believed, they suffered, they crossed the sea, and they entered Madinah, and the books of men did not record who they were. But they are not forgotten where it matters.
Every one of them was promised
Step back and look at the whole sweep of these early lives, because Dr. Omar Suleiman draws out something here that is easy to miss. Among the first Muslims, there was every imaginable path.
There were those who made the migration to Abyssinia and then the migration to Madinah, completing both. There were those who went to Abyssinia, heard that things had improved in Makkah, returned, and then found themselves trapped there again. There were those who made the journey to Abyssinia and died in Abyssinia, never seeing Madinah at all. There were those who could not flee, and died in Makkah under persecution. There were those who set out for the promised city of Madinah and died on the road, so close, never reaching it. And there were those, the passengers of these boats, who lived in Abyssinia for many long years and finally came home to spend only the last two or three years of the Prophet's life beside him.
Different routes. Different lengths of trial. Different shares of nearness to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Some saw almost everything. Some saw almost nothing. And over all of them, Dr. Suleiman places a single verse. When Allah speaks of the believers who gave and strove, and ranks some above others according to when and how they served, He does not leave the rest behind. He says of every one of them:
Why should you not give for God's cause when God alone will inherit what is in the heavens and earth? Those who gave and fought before the triumph are not like others: they are greater in rank than those who gave and fought afterwards. But God has promised a good reward to all of them: God is fully aware of all that you do.
Qur'an 57:10
To each of them, a good reward. Each one was promised Jannah and his own particular share of it. The one who died on the road and the one who lived to see Khaybar were not equal in rank, and yet not one of them was abandoned. Allah saw every step of every journey, including the ones that ended early, including the ones no historian recorded.
What the passengers' lives ask of our faith
It is easy to read about Khadijah, or Abu Bakr, or Bilal, and feel that faith belongs to the great and the named. The passengers of these boats ask us something different, something closer to our own lives, because most of us will live and die unnamed.
They believed without being seen. For years they were far from the centre of everything. The verses came down in Makkah and Madinah, the battles were fought, the religion took its shape, and they were across the sea with none of it, holding on to a faith they had accepted long before, with no crowd around them and no great events to carry them. That is most of a believer's life. You will not be at the famous moments. You will hold to Allah in ordinary rooms, far from anyone who would notice. Their lives say that this hidden, unwitnessed faithfulness is not a lesser faith. It is the very thing Allah was watching the whole time.
They were content with the share Allah gave them. Some of them reached the Prophet ﷺ only at the end and had just a few years near him. They did not get the long companionship others were given. And yet there is no record of bitterness, only the joy of finally arriving. This is contentment with Allah's decree, ridaa: to accept the portion He has measured for you without resenting that someone else was given more time, more nearness, more visible reward. In your own life, He has decided what you will be present for and what you will miss, who you will sit beside and who you will only hear about. Faith is trusting that the share He chose for you is the share that is best for you.
And here is the part that should settle the heart of anyone who fears their efforts are too small to count. Adi ibn Nadla died in a foreign land and is remembered, of all things, for being the first person inherited from, a detail so quiet it sounds like a footnote. Ma'mar is remembered for keeping a lock of hair. Anisa is remembered as a name. Many of their companions are remembered by no name at all. And every single one of them was promised a good reward by the Lord of the heavens and the earth. The world keeps lists of the important. Allah keeps a different record entirely, and on His record the unnamed passenger of a forgotten boat is written down in full, with everything he gave and everything he suffered, none of it lost.
So take this into your ordinary life. Do one thing for Allah that no one will see and no one will record, a prayer in the dark, a charity given in secret, a hardship borne quietly without complaint, and do it knowing that the absence of an audience changes nothing about the reward. Sincerity for Allah alone, ikhlas, is exactly what these passengers had, because for years they had no one else to perform for. Make your faith the kind that does not need to be seen to be real. Be content with the portion He has given you, near or far, early or late, much or little, trusting that He has promised the faithful a good reward, all of them, every one. May Allah be pleased with Anisa, an-Nu'man, Amir, and every unnamed passenger of those boats, and may He write us among those He has promised, even if the world never writes down our names at all.
This chapter follows the account of the Muslims of Abyssinia and the passengers of An-Najashi's boats in Dr. Omar Suleiman's series The Firsts (Yaqeen Institute). The Qur'an translation is from M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (57:10); the same "good reward for all of them" promise also appears at 4:95. Where the histories carry more than one narration, the most widely reported has been followed.