He was the seventh to embrace Islam, within the fourth day of the 
declaration of Prophet hood.
It was Abu Bakr As Siddique who gave him Da’wah. He was one among the Ashharal Mubashhara… the ten who got glad tiding of Jannah in this life. He was the last to die among the Ashharal Mubashhara. He was the first to shoot an arrow in the way of Allah. He was the first to injure an enemy of Allah. He was a fierce warrior and was a body guard of the Messenger of Allah till Allah revealed a verse taking up the responsiblity of protecting His messenger peace be upon him.
Seeing his zest and spirit in protecting and fighting for Islam, the messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said : ” My parentsbe sacrifice for you !”
That was an amazing honour for Sa’ad bin Abbi Waqqas.
Ali r.a. said: ”I had never heard the Prophet peace be upon him saying these words of honour to any one esle…”
Sa’ad bin Abi Waqqas r.a. was a young man whose entry into Islam sent some shocking waves in the heart of his mother. So she stopped eating and went on a 
huger strike , as an emotional blackmailing attempt. The fast stretched till his mother got extremly weak. So Sa’ad said : “My loving mother ! I love you very much but even if you had 100 souls and each departed in pain of my embracing Islam…even then I will not leave my faith.”
Musab bin Umair r.a. was an early Muslim too. His mother asked him to leave Islam or leave everything that his muhsrik father had given him. Musab chose to walk out leaving behind all his luxury. There was a time when he applied scent and walked past a road… the place remained fragrant for some time, and people would say, ”Musab must have passed from here.” His dresses were imported from Yemen.
Both these young men did not mind letting their mothers hate them but prefererd Allah’s pleasure.
Stories of early Muslims put us in shock.These early generations of Muslims had an amazing faith. They awere great in charity and possessed superb stamina of sabr. But the thing that amazes me and should amaze you is: ”This was their spirit of Islam at a time when the entire Qur’an was still not revealed. In the early days when they had only few verses of Quran and a few Surahs. What an impact it had on their lives.”
Today we have all types of Tafaseers, scores of books on Hadith, hundreds of books on seerah, thousands of lectures and seminars on Islam, multiple books on Fiqh, yet some thing is lacking.
We don’t possess that spirit that the early Muslims manage to get just within the revelations of few surahs ! The spirit of Istiqamat to sustain in hardship. Rather faith is our first casulty in crises.
Their generosity pulled out all their wealth from their pockets but we find it hard to give share to sisters from rightful inheritance. We have distributed among ourselves all those qualities that were possesed by the ignorant Makkans before Qur’an was revealed after possessing the entire Qur’an. .. This is something unfortunate.. isnt it?
Author : Nisaar Nadiadwala speaks and writes about Islam and Muslims. He can be reached at nisaar_yusuf@yahoo.com
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