“One! One!” is all sayyidna Bilal ibn Rabah repeated as he was being tortured by his owners for proclaiming Islam. With a heavy rock crushing his chest, and pushing his bare back into the scorching sand, every inch of his body must have been burning in flames of heat. The midday sun of Mecca torturing the top of his body, and the burning sand torturing his back, there was no escape for Bilal except into the world of the spirit, to which he turned all his attention, until he drowned in the ocean of the witnessing of Allah’s oneness. His body was on fire, but his soul was drinking from the ocean of witnessing: One! One! That was the station of sayyidna Bilal, at the beginning of Islam, so just imagine what stations he reached after being Rasool Allah’s personal assistant.

He become such a lover of the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam that he could no longer say the adhaan after his death: his tears always stopping him from finishing “I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” That is why Bilal was happy on the day of his death, saying that he would soon be reunited with sayyidna Muhammad. Allahumma Salli alaa sayyidna Muhammad wa alaa aalihi wa sahbihi wa sallem. Perhaps it was because of his great love for the Prophet that Paradise itself loved him, for it is related that the Prophet said, “Paradise longs for three: Ali, Ammar, and Bilal.”

After sayyidna Umar opened Jerusalem to Islam, Bilal moved to Bilad al-Sham, and among the places in which he settled was a place in modern day Jordan, in an area of Amman. That area is now known as Al-Rabahiyya, because Bilal ibn Rabah lived in it, and a mashhad is built there to honor his memory, which I visited.

But during his stay in Bilad al-Sham, Bilal saw the Prophet (salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam) in a dream, saying, “Is it not time for you to come visit me?” Bilal woke up sad and scared, and rode to Medina. He went to the Prophet’s grave, crying there and rubbing his face on it. Al-Hasan and al-Husayn heard of his arrival so they went to him, whereupon he hugged them and kissed them, so they said, “We desire to hear your adhaan that you did for Rasool Allah salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam in the mosque.” So he climbed to the top of the mosque and when he said, “Allahu Akbar“, the city shook. When he said, “Ashhadu an laa ilaaha illa Allah“, it shook even more. And when he said, “Ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasool Allah”, even the women that stayed secluded in their homes came out and shouted, “Rasool Allah has been raised!” After the day on which the Prophet died, there wasn’t seen as many women and men crying on any day than on that day.

Bilal headed back to Bilad al-Sham after that, dying in Damascus in his sixties. Al hamdu lillah, I found his tomb there and visited it on my last trip, and buried next to him was Abdallah son of Jaafar al-Tayyar. I had visited Sayyida Zainab bint Ali b. Abi Talib in Cairo, who was Abdallah’s wife,  and his father Sayyidna Jaafar in Jordan. Abdallah is famous for his generosity.