Early Muslims

From 613 to 619 CE, the Islamic prophet Muhammad gathered in his hometown of Mecca a small following of those who embraced his message of Islam and thus became Muslims. The first person who professed Islam was his wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid. The identity of the second male Muslim, after Muhammad himself, is nevertheless disputed largely along sectarian lines, as Shia and some Sunni sources identify him as the first Shia imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, a child at the time, who grew up in the household of his cousin, Muhammad. Other sources report that the first male convert was Abu Bakr, who later succeeded Muhammad as the first Sunni caliph, or Muhammad's foster son, Zayd ibn Haritha. While it is difficult to establish the chronological order of early conversions, the identities of early Muslims are known with some certainty.

First female Muslim

File:Khadija tomb.jpg

The mausoleum of Khadija in Mecca, before its demolition by the House of Saud in the 1920s

Muhammad may have received his first revelations around 610 CE, which he initially shared only with his wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid. Over time, in his hometown of Mecca, Muhammad gathered a small following of those who embraced his message of Islam (Template:Lit to God) and became Muslims. This increasingly drew the ire of the Meccan elite, who persecuted the early converts, especially the slaves and social outcasts.Template:Sfn While Khadija is universally recognized as the first female convert to Islam, the identity of the second male Muslim, after Muhammad himself, is disputed.Template:Sfn

Second male Muslim

An ongoing dispute concerns the identity of the second male Muslim, that is, the first male who accepted the teachings of Muhammad.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Shia and some Sunni sources identify him as Muhammad's cousin, Ali ibn Abi Talib, aged between nine and eleven at the time.Template:Sfn For instance, this is reported by the Sunni historian Ibn Hisham (Template:Died in) in his recension of Template:Transliteration, the biographical work of the Shia-leaning historian Ibn Ishaq (Template:Died in).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Similar reports appear in the works of the Sunni authors Ibn Sa'd (Template:Died in) and al-Suyuti (Template:Died in).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Ali himself claimed to be the second male Muslim in Template:Transliteration, a sermon attributed to him in Template:Transliteration.Template:Sfn Among contemporary authors, this is also the view of Hassan Abbas,Template:Sfn John Esposito,Template:Sfn Clément Huart,Template:Sfn Betty Kelen,Template:Sfn John McHugo,Template:Sfn Moojan Momen,Template:Sfn Hossein Nasr and Asma Afsaruddin,Template:Sfn and Reza Shah-Kazemi,Template:Sfn while W. Montgomery Watt (Template:Died in) regards the aforementioned list of early Muslims in Template:Transliteration as "roughly accurate."Template:Sfn

Other Sunni sources specify the first male convert to Islam as the first Sunni caliph Abu Bakr or Muhammad's foster son, Zayd ibn Haritha.Template:Sfn In particular, the Sunni historian al-Tabari (Template:Died in) lists contradictory Sunni traditions about Ali, Abu Bakr, and Zayd, thus leaving the decision to the reader.Template:Sfn The earliest extant records seem to place Ali before Abu Bakr, according to the Islamicist Robert Gleave.Template:Sfn Nevertheless, the SunniTemplate:NdashShia disagreement over this matter has an obvious polemical dimension,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and Abu Bakr's status after the death of Muhammad might have been reflected back into the early Islamic records.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Sunni sources often describe Ali as the first child to embrace Islam,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and the significance of his Islam has been questioned by Watt,Template:Sfn and also by the Sunni historian al-Jahiz (Template:Died in).Template:Sfn Alternatively, the Shia jurist Ibn Shahrashub (Template:Died in) counters that Ali grasped the message of Muhammad despite his youth, which he views as a merit for Ali, adding that Jesus and John the Baptist were similarly bestowed with divine wisdom in childhood, according to the Quran, the central religious text in Islam.Template:Sfn In Shia sources, not only was Ali the first male convert but he also never practiced idolatry, having been raised by Muhammad from a young age. This places him in Shi'ism above Abu Bakr, who was a middle-aged man at the time of his conversion.Template:Sfn

File:Al-Mazār al-Janūbī (Zayd ibn Ḥārithah Shrine).jpg

The shrine of Zayd ibn Haritha, foster son of Muhammad and an early Muslim, located in present-day Jordan

Other early Muslims

Since social status in Islam depended on Islamic precedence, historical reports about the order in which his followers joined Muhammad are often not reliable.Template:Sfn Nevertheless, an approximate list of early Muslims may be compiled with reasonable certainty, and one such list is given by Ibn Ishaq.Template:Sfn Many of them were young and middle-class men, surmises Watt, some of whom did not enjoy any clan protection and were thus susceptible to harassment by Meccan pagans.Template:Sfn

Among the Banu Hashim, Muhammad's clan, Ja'far ibn Abi Talib and Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib were two early Muslims.Template:Sfn Ubyda ibn al-Harith, some years senior to Muhammad, was another relative of him who embraced Islam early on.Template:Sfn Besides Abu Bakr, a young Talha ibn Ubayd Allah was another early convert from the Banu Taym clan in Mecca.Template:Sfn Among the Banu Zuhra, another Meccan clan, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and his brothers, Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud, al-Muttalib ibn Azhar and his brother, and Khabbab ibn al-Aratt were all early Muslims, though the last figure was a poor confederate with little protection, and probably suffered persecution in Mecca. Miqdad ibn Aswad and Mas'ud bin Rabi'a, both early Muslims, were two other confederates of this clan.Template:Sfn The early converts among the Meccan Banu Adi clan included Sa'id ibn Zayd, Nu'aym ibn Abd Allah, and Umar ibn al-Khattab, who later succeeded Abu Bakr to the caliphate.Template:Sfn Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah and Suhayl ibn Bayda' became Muslims from among the ranks of the Banu al-Harith, another Meccan clan.Template:Sfn Early Muslims from the Meccan clan of Banu Amir included Ibn Umm Makhtum, Suhayl ibn Amr, and his brothers.Template:Sfn Zubayr ibn al-Awwam is perhaps the only named early convert from the Banu Asad, another Meccan clan.Template:Sfn Among the influential Abd Shams clan in Mecca, Uthman ibn Affan, Abu Hudhayfa ibn Utba, Khalid ibn Sa'id, and the family of the confederate Jahsh professed Islam early on.Template:Sfn The Banu Makhzum, evidently the politically dominant clan in Mecca, also had some early Muslims, including Abu Salama, al-Arqam, Shams ibn Uthman, and the confederate Ammar ibn Yasir.Template:Sfn Khunays ibn Hudhafa is the only named early convert from the Banu Sahm, another Meccan clan.Template:Sfn Among the Banu Juma, Uthman ibn Maz'un and some of his close relatives are listed among the early converts.Template:Sfn