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The Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ

خَيْرُ النَّاسِ قَرْنِي

“The best of people are my generation” (al-Bukhārī 2652, Muslim 2533). The men and women who met him, believed in him and died as Muslims. Here are the ten he promised Paradise, the caliphs who led the community after him from Abū Bakr to the last Ottoman, and the Companions by group: the first believers, the Emigrants and the Helpers, those who fought at Badr, the commanders and fighters, the scholars and the women. Select any name for who they were and the sources.

407 Companions, 34 of them women, and 103 caliphs, each with sources.

The ten promised Paradise

The Prophet ﷺ named ten men who are in Paradise in a single hadith: “Abū Bakr is in Paradise, ʿUmar is in Paradise, ʿUthmān is in Paradise, ʿAlī is in Paradise, Ṭalḥa is in Paradise, al-Zubayr is in Paradise, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf is in Paradise, Saʿd [ibn Abī Waqqāṣ] is in Paradise, Saʿīd [ibn Zayd] is in Paradise, and Abū ʿUbayda ibn al-Jarrāḥ is in Paradise” (al-Tirmidhī 3747, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf; Saʿīd ibn Zayd narrated it too, al-Tirmidhī 3748 and Abū Dāwūd 4649–4650).

    The Rightly Guided Caliphs

    After the Prophet ﷺ the community was led by four of his closest Companions, and briefly by his grandson al-Ḥasan, who handed the caliphate to Muʿāwiya in 41 AH to end the fighting. The Prophet ﷺ had said: “The caliphate in my community will be thirty years, then kingship after that” (al-Tirmidhī 2226; Abū Dāwūd 4646–4647 has “the caliphate of prophethood”).

      The caliphs after them

      From Muʿāwiya in 41 AH to Abdülmecid II in 1924 CE the title passed through four houses: the Umayyads of Damascus, the Abbasids of Baghdad, the Abbasids of Cairo under the Mamluks, and the Ottomans. Apart from Muʿāwiya and ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Zubayr, the later caliphs were not Companions: the badge on each name says whether he was a Companion, a Successor who knew the Companions, or lived later.

      The people of Badr

      The Muslims who stood at Badr in Ramaḍān 2 AH (March 624 CE) are among the best of the Companions: the Prophet ﷺ counted them “among the best of the Muslims” (al-Bukhārī 3992), and said that Allah had looked upon them and said, “Do what you wish, for I have forgiven you” (al-Bukhārī 3007). Ibn Isḥāq lists them by tribe: the Emigrants of Quraysh, then the Aws and the Khazraj of Medina. Fourteen of them fell in the battle; they are marked here. A few who were sent elsewhere were given a share and are counted among them.

      The Companions by group

      A Companion is anyone who met the Prophet ﷺ as a believer and died as a Muslim. There were tens of thousands; these are the ones history remembers best. Choose a group, or search a name above.

        About this page

        Who counts as a Companion

        In the usage of the hadith scholars, a Companion (ṣaḥābī) is anyone who met the Prophet ﷺ while believing in him and died a Muslim (Ibn Ḥajar, al-Iṣāba). Those who learned from the Companions without meeting him are the Successors (tābiʿūn). The badge on each name shows which generation the person belongs to.

        The caliphs

        The page counts the caliphs the Sunni historians count: the Rightly Guided, the Umayyads of Damascus, the Abbasids of Baghdad, their line continued in Cairo under the Mamluks, and the Ottomans from Selim I. ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Zubayr, recognised in most of the Muslim world from 64 to 73 AH, is listed with the Umayyads of his time. The rival claims of the Umayyads of Cordoba and the Fatimids are explained in the entries of their contemporaries.

        Sources

        Ibn Ḥajar's al-Iṣāba, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr's al-Istīʿāb, Ibn Saʿd's al-Ṭabaqāt, al-Dhahabī's Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, al-Ṭabarī's Tārīkh, al-Suyūṭī's Tārīkh al-Khulafāʾ and the hadith collections. Each person's panel lists the sources used for that entry.