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The Firsts (Sahaba Stories) | The Forerunners of Islam
Uthman ibn Talha (ra): Holding the Key to the Ka’bah | The Firsts
For over 1,400 years, one clan has guarded the most important key in history. And ironically, it reached them through a man who once rudely denied the Prophet ﷺ entry into the Ka’bah.
But even as his own parents vehemently opposed the Prophet ﷺ, Uthman ibn Talha (ra) inched closer to Islam. His excellent character in escorting a Muslim woman (ra) to safety, and his joining two other great Companions as they finally headed to Medina to accept Islam, became turning points in his life.
And on the day of the Conquest of Mecca, the Prophet ﷺ honored him and his descendants with a duty that remains theirs until today.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
00:00Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh everyone. Welcome back to the first. Bismillah
00:10wa alhamdulillah wa assalatu wa assalam ala rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. So we have two more biographies in this particular genre of those who had incredible redemption stories. And
00:25the next two are going to be very closely related, but they have their own unique pathways and their own distinct features. May Allah be pleased with them both. And the man that we speak
00:36about today is Uthman ibn Talha ibn Abi Talha Abdullah ibn Abdul Uzza ibn Uthman ibn Abd al-Dar
00:44ibn Qusay al-Qurashi al-Abdari al-Hajabi, Haji al-Kaaba. It's a long name and Imam al-Dhahabi says that he is Uthman ibn Talha ibn Abi Talha and he comes down to the point that he is the
00:59custodian of the Kaaba. So this is the man who holds the keys to the Kaaba. And basically the story of this man is that he belongs to one of the most noble tribes of Quraysh in the time of
01:12Jahiliyyah which is Banu Abd al-Dar. And when you look back at the history of Quraysh, Banu Abd al-Dar were responsible for the custodianship of the Kaaba. So al-Hijabah, so they would drape the
01:25Kaaba. They would hold its keys. And Banu Hashim was responsible for the Siqayah which was providing water to people as they came and whatever accommodations in terms of their nourishment
01:37when they came to the Kaaba. So this tribe was known for its custodianship of the Kaaba even before Islam. And they also had the right to carry the war banner of Quraysh when they went
01:49out in battle. Which of course is going to mean that when Islam comes forth that they are carrying the banner of war against Islam and against the Muslims when the Prophet ﷺ
02:02resists them in Medina and in other places. So first and foremost I want you to have a vivid image of who this man is radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. And it goes back to an interaction between him
02:14and the Prophet ﷺ. So in Mecca before the Hijrah one of the practices of Quraysh was that they used to open the Kaaba on Mondays and Thursdays. Subhan'Allah which is very interesting
02:28because it shows you that again there was some retention of some of the ways of Ibrahim ﷺ that prevailed even though they had really ruined themselves with so many practices of
02:40polytheism. But they still had some rituals, some days, some months, some of the sacred times and some of the sacred relics that they held on to. So obviously we know in our Deen that Monday and
02:51Thursday are special days. They're the days that our deeds are presented to Allah ﷻ. They're days that the Prophet ﷺ used to love to fast. So for Quraysh they used to open the Kaaba
03:01on Mondays and Thursdays. So when the Prophet ﷺ had begun his da'wah he went to the Kaaba and he intended to enter into the Kaaba along with some of his people. And Uthman ibn Talha stood in
03:15front of him and he put his hand up and he pushed him away. And the Prophet ﷺ when he noticed this
03:23he said, Ya Uthman, la'allaka satara hadhidhal miftaha yawman biyadi, ada'uhu hayth shi'ta. Oh Uthman, perhaps one day you will see this key in my hand and I will place it wherever I wish.
03:38So the Prophet ﷺ is telling him that that key that you are borrowing me from today will one day be in my hand. And Uthman responds and he said, laqad halakat Qurayshun yawma idhin wa dhallat.
03:51That verily Quraysh would have perished and been humiliated on that day should that happen. And the Prophet ﷺ said, bal 'ammarat yawma idhin wa 'azzat. He said no, that is the day that Quraysh
04:04will flourish and it will be honored by Allah ﷻ putting that key in my hand. Now it's very interesting because Uthman says that that episode, that moment with the Prophet ﷺ never left him.
04:15It's like he knew from that moment something landed in his heart that perhaps things were going to be exactly as the Prophet ﷺ said, which shows you Subhan'Allah when someone says something with yaqeen, with certainty that way that sometimes that inspires yaqeen in somebody else.
04:28That inspires certainty in someone else. And when you looked at the Prophet ﷺ and you saw his certainty, you saw his conviction, everything that he said, then that was in and of itself a means by
04:38which iman, faith and certainty would enter into your heart. So this left a lasting impression on Uthman ibn Talha. So this happens in Mecca. The Prophet ﷺ makes his way to al-Madinah along
04:53with the companions. And the next incident with him is one that gives you a picture of a completely different person. And that is a man who is so noble that he would be praised by Umm Salamah
05:09as the most noble man she had ever seen from the Arabs, obviously excluding the Prophet ﷺ and the companions, but a very particular type of nobility that she would praise. And that shows
05:18you that some of the people of Jahiliyyah, they were misinformed, genuinely misinformed, right? And they thought perhaps they were defending their people by fighting against Islam,
05:29or there were some things that were retained in them that were good qualities, good characteristics, but they needed to purify those qualities and characteristics with Islam. So what's the story with Umm Salamah radi Allahu ta'ala anha? If you go back to the life of our mother Umm Salamah radi
05:43Allahu ta'ala anha, there was a dispute that took place in Mecca where she had her baby and she wanted to join her husband in Madinah. And her family was in a situation where she was being held back in Mecca
05:58and she wasn't being allowed to go. And then finally she was able to leave after a long dispute and she said, I prepared my camel and I placed my son onto the camel and then I set out to reach
06:12my husband in Madinah. And she said, I had no one accompanying me. And then she said, when I got to Tan'im, Subhan'Allah, there's so much irony that I'll get back to at Tan'im. But Tan'im is where
06:23Masjid Aisha radi Allahu ta'ala anha is. It's the Miqat for the people of Mecca. It's the place where when you're doing Umrah or Hajj and you need to take up, for example, another Ihram, you go out to
06:35Masjid Aisha in Tan'im. It's just about five miles out of Mecca. She said, when I got to Tan'im, I crossed paths with Uthman ibn Talha and he was on his way back from a journey.
06:47So he said to me, where are you headed to, O daughter of Abi Umayyah? So she said, I'm going to my husband in Madinah. Now Uthman could have said, because he was an opponent of
07:01the Prophet ﷺ, why are you going out to Madinah? Go back to your people. This is shameful. You should be with us and this and this and that. But instead he says to her, you have no one with you.
07:14So I said, I only have Allah and I have this son with me. So Uthman responds and he says,
07:27there is no way, I swear by Allah, there is no way that I will leave you alone. So Umm Salamah says that Uthman ibn Talha went and he grabbed the camel bridle and he set off
07:40with Umm Salamah and she says,
07:49she said, I swear by Allah, I have never seen anyone in the Arabs that is as noble as him. Why? She says that whenever we encamped, he used to kneel my camel down and he wouldn't look at me
08:02and then he would go far away from me and once my camel went astray and he caught my camel and he got a hold of it and he tied it to the tree and then he left it there and then he went
08:12and he rested under another tree. He would go far away when any need needed to be fulfilled. He did not look towards me, he did not talk to me, he maintained the best of manners, the best of
08:24akhlaq. So he's going and he's fetching the food and the drink and he's taking care of Umm Salamah but he's maintaining his distance and respecting her the entire time. So she said that this
08:35continued all the way until we got to Quba' to the area of Amr ibn Auf which is the tribe of Quba' and as we got to Quba' and we were right there at the outskirts of Medina, he said,
08:49Your husband is in that area so enter it by the blessing of Allah. And he turned around and he
08:59made his way back to Mecca. What an honorable act, what a noble act, right? And he wasn't even Muslim and Subhan'Allah he didn't even ask anything in return, he didn't ask for any compensation.
09:10The ulama say that this is similar to the story of Umm Salamah radi Allahu ta'ala anha when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told her to say,
09:20Oh Allah compensate me for my tragedy and give me something better than that which was taken from me that Uthman radi Allahu ta'ala anhu in this situation left off something lower and the
09:32Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would repay him with something far greater later on in life when he asked for nothing in this honorable situation of his. So he goes back to Mecca. Now when's the next time he's going to see the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam?
09:45And this gets so interesting. His father was Talha ibn Abi Talha who is known as the bogeyman
09:55of Quraysh in many ways. And he is the person who used to come out and he used to call people out for a duel and no one wanted to face Talha ibn Abi Talha. And you'll remember in the story of
10:07al-Zubayr radi Allahu ta'ala anhu that Talha ibn Abi Talha, this is the father of Uthman, he came out before Uhud and he called out three times daring someone to come out and fight him. And al-Zubayr radi Allahu ta'ala anhu went forward and Safiyyah radi Allahu ta'ala anha,
10:21the mother of al-Zubayr, she said, Ya Rasulullah, he's going to kill my son. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, rather al-Zubayr will kill him insha'Allah. And Talha ibn Abi Talha rode the best of the horses of the mushrikeen. And Ali radi
10:34Allahu ta'ala anhu says that al-Zubayr radi Allahu anhu walked up to him, he dropped his sword, he climbed up the horse and he took the sword of Talha ibn Abi Talha from him. And then he killed
10:45him and he knocked him off the horse and then brought back that horse to the Muslims for their own use. So this is Talha ibn Abi Talha, the father of Uthman ibn Talha. And so his father
10:58was killed in Uhud, but then it doesn't stop there. After his father was killed in Uhud, his brother Abu Sa'id ibn Talha took the banner because remember they were the ones that would
11:09carry the banner of Quraysh in battle. And his brother Abu Sa'id ibn Talha was killed by Ali ibn Abi Talib radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. And then another brother took the banner, Musafir ibn Talha
11:22and he raised that banner and Musafir was shot by an arrow from Asim ibn Thabit radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. And then al-Julas ibn Talha, a third brother, he stepped forth and he took the banner
11:35and likewise he was hit by an arrow from Asim ibn Thabit radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. And then a fourth brother, Kilab ibn Talha took up the banner and he was struck down and killed by al-Zubayr once
11:47again radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. And then a fifth brother, al-Harith ibn Talha took up the banner and he was struck down and killed by Ali radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. And then on top of that,
11:57so his father fell. Five of his brothers fell. On top of that, his uncle Uthman ibn Abi Talha. This gets confusing. He is Uthman ibn Talha ibn Abi Talha. His uncle is Uthman ibn Abi Talha.
12:12Okay, so he was named after his uncle. His uncle takes the banner and his uncle was killed by Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. And of course this all took place before the
12:23skirmish of Uhud where the Muslims were ambushed and multiple Muslims were killed. So he lost his father, five brothers, and uncle in Uhud against the Muslims. Yet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala spared
12:35him. And his father was the bogeyman of Quraysh, one of the most evil of Quraysh and most boastful of Quraysh against the Prophet ﷺ and the Muslims. On top of that, his mother is Sulafa ibn Sa'd.
12:48And Sulafa ibn Sa'd, we go back to the story of Asim ibn Thabit radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. Sulafa ibn Sa'd, when she came to her sons Musafir and al-Julas in Uhud and she saw them
12:59struck by the arrows, she asked them as they were dying, who killed you? And they said that they heard a man that was throwing the arrow referring to himself as Asim ibn Thabit. And so Sulafa
13:11was the one who made the vow that if she ever got the skull of Asim ibn Thabit radi Allahu ta'ala anhu that she would drink wine out of it. And she was the one that put a bounty of a hundred camels
13:23on his head. And of course, if you go back to Asim ibn Thabit radi Allahu ta'ala anhu, he is the one who Allah protected his body with a swarm of hornets or wasps that concealed him
13:36so that his body was not taken by Sulafa. And of course, in the same incident, Khubaib radi Allahu ta'ala anhu was crucified in Tan'im, the place where Uthman ibn Talha met Umm Salamah and brought
13:49her to Medina. So there's so much irony in this. So his father is that guy. His mother has this, you know, incredible rage and this desire to drink wine out of the skull of one of the great
14:01companions of the Prophet ﷺ. So there's something there. But Uthman felt and knew that Allah Azawajal spared him for a reason. I mean, all of these people from his family that fell,
14:13it truly is something that he survived. And so he comes out to Medina alongside Khalid ibn al-Walid
14:22radi Allahu ta'ala anhu and then Amr ibn al-As radi Allahu ta'ala anhu to meet the Prophet ﷺ after Hudaybiyyah, before Fath Makkah, before the conquest of Makkah. And when the Prophet ﷺ
14:36saw Khalid and Uthman and Amr coming forward, he said the famous words, that Makkah has put forth before you the finest pieces of its inside. You know, like the Kabid is,
14:51of course, the liver. And there's the famous hadith where the Prophet ﷺ says that the earth, he uses the same language, the earth will vomit out its insides. And there will be pillars of
15:01gold and silver, right? So the same thing, the same language is used here. The Prophet ﷺ was overjoyed to see Khalid, Amr and the least of the companions in terms of fame, Uthman ibn Talha
15:13radi Allahu ta'ala anhu. So he comes to the Prophet ﷺ and he embraces Islam with the messenger of Allah ﷺ. And then the Prophet ﷺ comes forth in Fath Makkah. And as the Prophet ﷺ
15:26gets to the doors of the Ka'bah, the same man who once pushed him away, the Prophet ﷺ requests the key from Uthman ibn Talha. Uthman radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu opens the door for the Prophet ﷺ.
15:38And as the Prophet ﷺ goes into the Ka'bah, and he purifies it of its idols, and he prays ﷺ.
15:46Banu Hashim said to the Prophet ﷺ, now that Allah ﷻ has given you victory,
15:53O our son, give us the double honor, right? Of not just siqaya, not just giving water to the
16:02pilgrims, but also of being custodians of the Ka'bah. And the Prophet ﷺ, he said, no,
16:08rather, here is your key, O Uthman. Today is the day of righteousness and loyalty. Some of the scholars say that included in this is not just the noble ethics of the Prophet ﷺ
16:23in trying to win over the hearts of Quraysh's former enemies, but also for what he did for Umm Salamah radiAllahu ta'ala Anha. And then he says the famous words,
16:39take it, O children of Abu Talha, forever and inherited. And no one will ever take this key from you except an oppressor. And some of the scholars say this is when Allah ﷻ revealed the
16:51ayah. Indeed, Allah commands you to render trusts when they are due. Until today, the key remains
17:03in the family of Abu Talha, and Uthman radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu remained with that key to the Ka'bah until that moment. But he came back with the Prophet ﷺ after the hijrah. He lived in Medina
17:16with the Prophet ﷺ. And when the Prophet ﷺ passed away, Uthman radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu came back to Mecca. And he lived in Mecca until about 41 or 42 years after the hijrah, when he would
17:29pass away in that same place where he was holding the keys of the Ka'bah radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. Some of the scholars said that he died in the battle of Ajnadayn. Allah knows best, but it seems like his death was in Mecca, where he passed away radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. So imagine subhanAllah,
17:44the man who once told the Prophet ﷺ don't enter and held the key to the Ka'bah and said that Quraysh would be humiliated the day you take the key was the man that the Prophet ﷺ honored to
17:55open the Ka'bah for him and then place the key in his hands forever. May Allah subhanAllah ta'ala allow us to have our hearts opened the way that the Ka'bah was opened and may Allah subhanAllah
18:06ta'ala allow us to redeem ourselves and to have these noble qualities that were found in people like Uthman ibn Talha radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. Allahumma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran. Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.







































































































































































































