Supplication · c. 615 CE (Meccan period)
O Allah, help Khabbab.
Said upon seeing Khabbab tortured with fire by Ummi Anmar.
Khabbab ibn al-Aratt was an Arab slave and a swordsmith, owned by a woman named Ummi Anmar. When she found out that he had become Muslim, she gathered a gang of Quraysh men. They surrounded him at his workplace and beat him until he was bloodied and bruised. After that, Ummi Anmar herself often burned his back with the same iron he used to forge swords. One day the Prophet ﷺ saw Khabbab being tortured with fire, and he prayed, "O Allah, help Khabbab." A few days later Ummi Anmar fell gravely ill and lost her senses. The doctors of Makkah said the only treatment was cauterization, burning the skin. She was cauterized on her back and head, and she eventually died from it.
An example of Allah answering the Prophet ﷺ's prayer on behalf of a tortured believer.
Other events recorded in 7 BH. Their order within the year is not established; use the storyline above for the sequence.
O Allah, help Khabbab.
Said upon seeing Khabbab tortured with fire by Ummi Anmar.
When I came back, I saw a whole group of Quraysh around me at my place of work. They began to taunt and ridicule me until I confessed that I was a Muslim, and when I did, they began hitting me so much that the next thing I knew, I woke up bloodied and bruised.
O Messenger of Allah ﷺ, for how long are we going to suffer like this?
Indeed, the people before you were tortured worse than you, with hot iron combs that would strip his flesh, with a saw or knife that would cut him in half, and still that would not turn them away from the worship of Allah. Verily, I swear to you by the One who has sent me, Allah will perfect this matter to such an extent that a Muslim shepherdess will take her flock from Sana'a to Hadhramaut and fear none but Allah, or a wolf attacking her sheep. But you are being hasty.
إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا
“Surely, with difficulty comes ease.”
Cited in the lecture alongside the hadith of Khabbab ibn al-Aratt complaining to the Prophet ﷺ about the duration of persecution.