Anas ibn Malik
612 CE–712 CE · Medina
Anas ibn Malik al-Ansari was a Companion (sahabi, a contemporary who knew the Prophet Muhammad) born in Yathrib — later Medina — around 612 CE, roughly ten years before the Hijra (the Prophet's 622 CE migration to that city). Tradition reports that when Muhammad arrived in Medina, Anas's mother, Umm Sulaym, brought her young son to him to serve in his household; Anas is said to have attended the Prophet for about ten years, earning the by-name Khadim al-Nabi ("Servant of the Prophet"). Sira (biographical tradition) lists his presence at events such as Khaybar, the conquest of Mecca, the siege of Ta'if and the Farewell Pilgrimage; these reports come from the tradition rather than from independently attested record.
After the Prophet's death (632 CE), Anas eventually settled in Basra in southern Iraq, traditionally during the governorship of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari around 638 CE, and spent most of his long life there. He is counted among the mukthirun — the handful of Companions credited with transmitting an unusually large number of reports (hadith) about the Prophet's words and conduct — and is widely remembered as one of the last surviving Companions in Basra.
The sources disagree on the details of his death: most place it between 91 and 93 AH (roughly 710–712 CE) in Basra, and report him as extraordinarily aged, with estimates from the high nineties past one hundred lunar years. Such advanced ages and early dates are traditional estimates and should be read with caution.
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Medina
What they did here
Born in Yathrib (Medina) around 612 CE, about ten years before the Hijra, into the Khazraj of the Ansar. Tradition holds that his mother Umm Sulaym presented him to the Prophet after the migration of 622, and that he served in the household for roughly a decade, earning the name Khadim al-Nabi ('Servant of the Prophet'). The childhood-service narrative comes from the sira and hadith tradition; the chronology is a traditional estimate.
About Medina
Medina (al-Madina, formerly Yathrib), in the Hejaz of western Saudi Arabia, is the city to which the Prophet Muhammad emigrated in 622 (the hijra), establishing the first Muslim community; it contains his tomb and is Islam's second-holiest city. As the cradle of early Islamic law and hadith scholarship it remained a major centre of learning that drew the scholars connected here.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Anas ibn Malik’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Jewish world
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Works
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