The only living sahabi tree

The last good fellow (sahabi) alive, this is how they call this tree located in the inhospitable desert in northern Jordan.

A caravan going to Syria sat down under its shadow. Muhammad, the future Prophet of Islam, was travelling with the caravan. He was as young as nine years old and was accompanying his uncle Abu Talib.

When Bahira, who was a Christian monk retired in solitude in a cell nearby, saw the caravan arriving, he was impressed to realise that a little cloud was moving over the heads of some of the travellers, protecting them from the scorching sun. He was also very surprised to see that the branches of the tree sink down to the caravan that sat down to have a rest under its crown.

Bahira had read an old manuscript in which the arrival of a new prophet was announced and he had the clear intuition that he would meet him during his lifetime. Those little miracles were just confirming that the arrival of the Prophet was coming soon. Then he prepared the food supplies he had and invited the Quraish caravan to share them with him, meeting all the “young and old, slaves and free people”. When the caravan approached to him, he examined their faces one by one, and he could not detect any of the signals announced in the manuscript, so he asked if anybody had stayed under the tree.

A little boy stayed and his name is Muhammad, they told him. They immediately invited him to share the lunch with the Christian monk. When he looked at Muhammad, he recognized the prophecy sign in his face, asked him some questions in order to confirm its intuition and finally reached to see on his back the seal of the Prophethood mentioned in the manuscrypt. He was astonished and advised Abu Talib about his nephew: big things but also big troubles were waiting for him.

Today, 1400 years later, the blessed tree is still alone, without any other tree around.

Watch the video