Al-Rafiq al-A'la: The Final Days of the Prophet

The hand that had once gripped a sword at Badr, that had wiped tears from the faces of orphans, that had been raised in supplication on the plains of Arafat barely three months before — that hand now dips weakly into a clay jar of water, lifts, and presses against a burning forehead. The room is small, barely ten paces across. The walls are mud-brick. The ceiling is thatched palm. And on a thin mattress laid upon the earthen floor, the most consequential human being in history is dying.

The Army That Would Not Depart

The illness begins in the shadow of a departure. In the final weeks of Safar, in the eleventh year of the Hijrah, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has ordered the assembly of a military expedition under the command of Usama ibn Zayd (may Allah be pleased with him) — a young man of seventeen or eighteen whose father, Zayd ibn Harithah (may Allah be pleased with him), had fallen at the Battle of Mu’tah three years prior. The appointment is deliberate, even provocative. Among those placed under Usama’s command are Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with them both), veterans whose beards have gone grey in the service of Islam.

Murmurs ripple through Madinah. He is too young. He is not a Qurashi. His father was a freed slave. The Prophet addresses the grumbling directly, reminding them that they had once questioned Zayd’s leadership too — and look at the legend Zayd became. As recorded in the hadith collections, he declares that Usama is worthy of command, and that he is among the most beloved of people to him after Zayd.

Usama departs at the end of Safar, his force marching north toward the Byzantine frontier. But one or two days outside the city, a breathless messenger catches up: the Prophet has fallen ill. Usama halts, camps, and waits. He does not yet know that the man who sent him forth will never greet his return.

The Expedition of Usama: Islam Beyond Arabia

The symbolism of the Usama expedition reverberates far beyond its immediate military objective. By dispatching an army toward Palestine and the borders of the Byzantine Empire in his final conscious days, the Prophet was laying a foundation that would outlast his earthly life. Islam was not to be confined to the Arabian Peninsula. It was a global message, and the direction of its first post-prophetic military engagement — northward, toward Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam — was no accident.

After the Prophet’s passing, one of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq’s first and most contested decisions as Khalifah was to honor this command and send Usama’s force onward. Many counseled him to recall the army, given the political turmoil of the succession and the emerging tribal rebellions. Abu Bakr’s response was characteristically resolute: “How can I roll up a banner that the Messenger of Allah unfurled?” The expedition proceeded, and it became the first Muslim army to achieve a significant engagement against the Roman Empire, paving the way for the eventual conquest of Syria and Palestine during the caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab.

Signs That No One Wanted to Read

Looking back, the signs were everywhere — woven into the Quran itself, threaded through quiet conversations, embedded in the very texture of the final year. But it is the nature of love to refuse the evidence of loss.

“Indeed, you are to die, and indeed, they are to die.” — Az-Zumar (39:30)

As explicit as revelation can be. And yet, when Abu Bakr would later recite this verse on the day of the Prophet’s death, Umar ibn al-Khattab would respond, in one narration, as though he had never heard it before. In another version, he asked whether these words were truly from the Quran. Not because he had forgotten — but because grief had made the familiar unrecognizable.

“Muhammad is not but a messenger. Other messengers have passed on before him. So if he was to die or be killed, would you turn back on your heels?” — Ali Imran (3:144)

This verse had been revealed at the Battle of Uhud, when the rumor of his death had scattered the Muslim ranks. Allah was preparing them even then — posing the question as a when, not an if.

“And We did not grant to any man before you immortality; so if you die — would they be eternal?” — Al-Anbiya (21:34)

If anyone in creation deserved eternal life, it would have been him. And Allah said plainly: even you will die.

Then there were the private premonitions. In Ramadan of the tenth year, Jibril came to review the Quran with the Prophet — not once, as was customary, but twice. The Prophet sensed the significance without being told explicitly. When he sent Mu’adh ibn Jabal (may Allah be pleased with him) to govern Yemen, he walked beside Mu’adh’s mount and told him, in words that made the governor weep: “O Mu’adh, perhaps you shall not see me after this. Perhaps when you return to Madinah, you will find only my mosque and my grave.”

And the entire Farewell Hajj — Hajjatul Wada’ — was named for what it was: a goodbye. He had told the pilgrims at Arafat: “I do not know if I will see you after this year of mine.”

Scholarly Note

The question of whether the Prophet knew the precise timing of his death is a matter of scholarly discussion. The evidence suggests a strong premonition — an intuition deepened by indirect divine indications — rather than explicit foreknowledge. Allah did not inform him of the exact date. Rather, as Dr. Yasir Qadhi notes, “Allah is indirectly suggesting without explicitly telling.” The double review of the Quran by Jibril, the farewell tone of the Hajj, and the private conversations with companions like Mu’adh all point to a growing awareness, not a fixed decree communicated in advance.

The Midnight Visit to Baqi’

Sometime at the very end of Safar — or perhaps the first of Rabi’ al-Awwal — the Prophet wakes in the night and knocks on the door of his servant Abu Muwayhibah. Jibril has commanded him to visit the graveyard. And so the two of them walk through the quiet streets of Madinah to Baqi’ al-Gharqad, where the Muslim dead lie beneath the desert floor.

He stands among the graves of his companions, his family, those who had believed and bled and been buried. He makes a long supplication for them. And then, on the walk home, he confides to Abu Muwayhibah something extraordinary: Allah has offered him a choice — the keys to this world and eternal life followed by Paradise, or to meet his Lord immediately and enter Paradise now.

Abu Muwayhibah pleads: “May my mother and father be your ransom, O Messenger of Allah — choose this world and then Paradise!” But the Prophet’s answer is already settled. “No,” he says. “I have already chosen. I have already chosen.”

Abu Muwayhibah would only share this conversation after the Prophet’s passing. At the time, even hearing such words, the servant could not fully absorb what they meant. The human heart resists what it cannot bear.

Ten Days of Fever

He returns to the house of his wife Maymunah (may Allah be pleased with her). It is around the first or second of Rabi’ al-Awwal. And it is there, in Maymunah’s room, that the fever begins.

For the first few days, he attempts to maintain his rotation among his wives’ homes, as was his lifelong practice of fairness. But the fever intensifies until he can barely walk. Finally, he asks permission — though Islamic law did not require it of him — to remain in one place. Would his wives allow him to stay in the house of ‘A’ishah bint Abi Bakr (may Allah be pleased with her)?

They agree, of course. And so the small chamber adjoining the mosque — a room that could be crossed in a few strides — becomes the stage for the final chapter of prophecy.

There is no medicine for the fever. No painkiller, no remedy. Only water poured over his body, and the protective recitations — Surat al-Falaq and Surat al-Nas — that ‘A’ishah blows gently over him, using the very supplications he had taught her. He would later say, as recorded in hadith: “Fever is one of the punishments of Jahannam in this world.” And the companions who attended him observed that his fever seemed to burn with the intensity of ten ordinary men.

Even in this extremity, his humor does not desert him. When ‘A’ishah clutches her own head and moans, “Oh, my head!” — he smiles through his pain and says: “No, O ‘A’ishah, rather — oh, my head!” Then, gently, testing the waters of a truth she is not yet ready to hear: “O ‘A’ishah, what would you lose if you were to die now and I am still alive? I would wash your body, shroud you, pray over you, and place you in your grave.”

Her response is pure ‘A’ishah — jealousy sparking even at the edge of catastrophe: “I’m sure you’d love that! Then no one would be watching which wife you visit next!”

She does not realize that this playful exchange is, in truth, a preparation. He is easing her, inch by inch, toward the unbearable.

The Transfer of Authority

Around the fifth day of his illness, he orders buckets of cool water brought from a particular well known for its refreshing quality. They pour jar after jar over him. He wraps a turban tightly around his throbbing head. Then, supported between al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib and Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with them both) — his uncle and his son-in-law, the innermost circle of his household — he is carried to the mosque.

He cannot stand on the minbar. He sits. The mosque is already packed; the Companions have been camping there for days, sleeping on the floor, waiting for any news. And from that seated position, he delivers what amounts to a series of final instructions.

He warns against taking the graves of prophets as places of worship, invoking the curse of Allah upon those who had done so before. He asks, again and again, whether anyone holds a claim against him — a debt unpaid, a wrong unredressed. One man, embarrassed by the Prophet’s insistence, finally admits to a trivial sum of three dirhams owed from a long-forgotten act of charity. The Prophet orders it paid immediately.

Then he speaks in the third person, his voice carrying across the crowded hall: “There is a servant from among the servants of Allah whom Allah has given the choice between this world and what is with his Lord — and he has chosen what is with his Lord.”

The audience is moved but oblivious. What a fortunate man, they think. Only one person in the entire mosque understands. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq begins to sob — loudly, uncontrollably — and the people stare at him in confusion. The Prophet looks at Abu Bakr and says: “Do not cry, O Abu Bakr. You are the one I trust the most in my companionship and in my wealth. Were I able to take a khalil — an intimate friend — in this world, my khalil would have been Abu Bakr. But I cannot, for Allah has taken me as His khalil.”

Then comes the decree: all private doors opening from the surrounding houses into the mosque are to be sealed — except the door of Abu Bakr.

Scholarly Note

The closing of all doors except Abu Bakr’s is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Scholars of Ahl al-Sunnah have understood this as one of the clearest indirect indications of Abu Bakr’s designation as the Prophet’s successor. The Prophet deliberately avoided making an explicit, formal appointment — a wisdom that, from the Sunni perspective, preserved flexibility in the method of selecting future leaders. Abu Bakr was chosen by consultation (shura), Umar was nominated by his predecessor, Uthman was selected by a council, and Ali assumed leadership in yet another manner — all considered legitimate precisely because no single method was mandated. Non-Sunni traditions interpret the evidence of succession differently, particularly regarding the role of Ali ibn Abi Talib. This remains one of the most significant points of divergence in Islamic historiography.

The transfer of the prayer follows shortly after — whether on Thursday or Friday night is debated among historians. The Prophet attempts to rise for ‘Isha but collapses. Seven times he tries to stand; seven times his body fails him. Finally, he turns to ‘A’ishah: “Command Abu Bakr — let him lead the people in prayer.”

‘A’ishah resists. She enlists Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with her). She offers excuses — her father’s soft heart, his tendency to weep during recitation. But the Prophet sees through the conspiracy. “You are like the women around Yusuf,” he says, invoking the Quranic story of women who plotted while thinking no one noticed. “Go and find Abu Bakr, for Allah and His Messenger will not allow anyone other than Abu Bakr.”

And so Abu Bakr leads the prayer. For the first time in ten years, someone other than the Prophet stands at the front of the congregation in Masjid al-Nabawi while the Prophet is present in the city.

The Last Sermon, the Last Coin

On what is most likely Saturday — one or two days before his death — the Prophet musters enough strength to be carried out once more during the Dhuhr prayer. Abu Bakr is already leading. When the congregation senses the Prophet’s presence, a commotion ripples through the rows. Abu Bakr steps back. The Prophet motions: “Stay where you are.” But Abu Bakr insists — out of reverence, not disobedience — that the Prophet take the imam’s place. And so the Prophet leads the prayer seated, while Abu Bakr stands visible to the congregation, relaying the movements. The symbolism is unmistakable: the people follow Abu Bakr, and Abu Bakr follows the Prophet.

After the prayer, he is lifted onto the minbar one final time. He praises the Ansar — those citizens of Madinah who had sheltered the faith — and commands the community to honor them. He orders the purification of the Arabian Peninsula from all idolatry. He tells them to treat future converts with the same hospitality he had shown.

The very last words he speaks from that minbar, the final public utterance of his prophetic career:

“As-salah, as-salah — wa attaqullaha fima malakat aymanukum.”

The prayer, the prayer — and fear Allah regarding those whom your right hands possess. Guard the salah. Protect the weak. Then he descends, enters his house, and never walks out again.

The next day, Sunday, he asks ‘A’ishah how much money he has. She finds seven silver dirhams — his entire worldly wealth, the equivalent of perhaps twenty dollars. He holds the coins in his palm, turning them over, and says: “If I meet Allah with these coins, what will I say to Him?” He gives them back to ‘A’ishah and tells her to distribute them to the poor. She is preoccupied with nursing him and delays. He asks again. And again. He will not rest until the coins are gone.

When the Prophet passes away, there is not a single coin in the house. His armor is held as collateral by a Jewish merchant of Madinah for a loan of thirty measures of barley. ‘A’ishah does not even have oil for her lamp that final night. The man to whom the wealth of an entire peninsula flowed dies owning nothing.

Monday, the Twelfth of Rabi’ al-Awwal

At Fajr, he is too weak to rise. But he lifts the curtain separating his chamber from the mosque. The Companions — who have not seen his face for two days — erupt in joy. Abu Bakr, leading the prayer, assumes he is coming out and begins to step back. The Prophet motions: stay. He is not coming. He simply watches — his ummah, lined up in rows, praying to their Lord — and his face beams with a smile that those who saw it would never forget.

It is the last time anyone outside that small room sees his face alive.

Through the morning, the fever surges. He drifts in and out of consciousness. Fatimah bint Muhammad (may Allah be pleased with her) — his last surviving child, the only one of his children still drawing breath — rushes in and cries: “How painful is the suffering of my father!”

He answers: “Your father will not suffer after today.”

Then he calls her close and whispers. She weeps. He whispers again. She laughs. ‘A’ishah, watching, asks what he said. Fatimah refuses to reveal the Prophet’s secret. Only months later, after his death, does she explain: the first whisper was that his time had come. The second was that she would be the first of his family to follow him, and that she would be the leader of the women of Paradise. She wept at the first news and laughed at the second — because Fatimah did not want to live in a world without her father.

She would die less than six months later.

Usama ibn Zayd arrives from outside the city for a final visit. The Prophet cannot speak. He can only raise his hand weakly and point upward — a silent prayer, a benediction, a command to go on.

‘A’ishah, not knowing what else to do, sits cross-legged and cradles him against her chest. Her brother, Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr, enters carrying a miswak — a tooth-stick. The Prophet’s eyes fix on it. ‘A’ishah reads the unspoken request: “Do you want the miswak?” He nods. She takes it from her brother, softens the bristles with her own teeth, and places it in his hand. He brushes with a vigor that shocks her — where is this energy coming from? — cleaning his mouth one final time, preparing himself for the meeting ahead.

Then the fever overwhelms him. He wipes his forehead with water and murmurs:

“Verily, death has its pangs. Verily, death has its pangs.”

He repeats La ilaha illallah and prays: “O Allah, help me to overcome the pangs of death.”

And then, as ‘A’ishah leans close to catch his fading words, she hears:

“With the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous… O Allah, forgive me, have mercy on me, and join me with al-Rafiq al-A’la.”

Three times he says it. And the last sound that leaves his lips is: al-Rafiq al-A’la — the Highest Companion.

Scholarly Note

The meaning of al-Rafiq al-A’la is discussed among scholars. Some hold that it refers to the company of the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous — the categories mentioned in Surah al-Nisa (4:69). Others argue that al-Rafiq al-A’la is a reference to Allah Himself, as al-A’la (the Most High) is among the divine names. Both interpretations are considered valid, and they are not mutually exclusive — being in the company of the prophets is, by definition, being in the proximity of the Divine. ‘A’ishah’s narration of these final moments is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari (4440) and Sahih Muslim (2444).

The Darkest Day

Fatimah rushes in from next door: “O my father! He has answered the call of his Lord! O my father — Jannatul Firdaws is your abode! O my father — to Jibril we give the news of your passing!”

‘A’ishah would later say that among the greatest blessings Allah gave her was that the Prophet died in her house, on her day, between her neck and her chest, with her saliva in his mouth — from the miswak she had softened for him.

The news detonates across Madinah. Some Companions sit in stunned silence. Others wander aimlessly. Umar ibn al-Khattab — the mountain, the lion, the man who had announced his own hijrah to the Quraysh and dared them to stop him — loses himself entirely. He storms through the mosque shouting that anyone who claims the Prophet is dead will face his sword. “These are the lies of the hypocrites! He has gone to his Lord like Musa went for forty days! He will return!”

It is the scream of a man whose world has ended.

Abu Bakr is not in the mosque. When the Prophet had smiled at Fajr, Abu Bakr — who had not been home in a week — had taken it as a sign of recovery and gone to see his family. Now, hearing the news, he gallops back on his horse. He does not enter the mosque. He goes straight to ‘A’ishah’s chamber. There, he lifts the cloth from the Prophet’s face, kisses his forehead, and weeps: “How beautiful you are in life and in death, O Messenger of Allah.”

Then he walks into the chaos of the mosque. “O Umar, sit down.” Umar does not sit. He stares, uncomprehending. Abu Bakr ascends the minbar — but not to the top. Never to the top. No one will ever stand where the Prophet stood. He takes a lower step and speaks the words that will echo through fourteen centuries:

“Whoever used to worship Muhammad — then know that Muhammad has died. And whoever used to worship Allah — then indeed, Allah is the Ever-Living, who never dies.”

Then he recites: “Muhammad is not but a messenger. Other messengers have passed on before him. So if he was to die or be killed, would you turn back on your heels?” — Ali Imran (3:144).

Umar ibn al-Khattab collapses to the ground. “It was as if I heard the verse for the very first time,” he would later say.

The Poet’s Grief

Hassan ibn Thabit (may Allah be pleased with him), the poet laureate of Islam, the man who had defended the Prophet with verse as others defended him with steel, composes an elegy that captures the anguish of an entire community:

“Why is it that my eyes cannot sleep? The rivers of tears have carved permanent channels on my cheeks… O the best human being who ever walked the face of this earth — how I wish I was buried in Baqi’ before they buried you. How I wish I wasn’t here to hear this news… Am I supposed to live in Madinah when you’re not here? Why didn’t someone give me poison so I don’t have to live this day?… O Allah, reunite me with the Prophet in Jannatul Firdaws.”

The poem, preserved in Ibn Hisham’s Sirah, is a masterwork of the ritha’ genre — the Arabic elegy — and it speaks not just for Hassan but for every soul in Madinah who could not imagine drawing breath in a world emptied of prophetic presence.

The Burial

The next day, Tuesday, the immediate family gathers to wash the body: al-Abbas, his sons al-Fadl and Qutham, Ali ibn Abi Talib, and the freed servant Shafina. They face an agonizing question: how do you perform the ritual washing when it requires removing the garments? As they deliberate, all of them fall into a sudden sleep and hear a voice — Jibril’s — instructing them: wash him with his clothes on.

They do. He is shrouded in three white garments from Suhul in Yemen. No turban. No shirt. Just the simplicity of the shroud.

Where to bury him? Suggestions range from Baqi’ to beneath the minbar to the prayer area of the mosque. Abu Bakr settles it with a hadith he alone remembers: “Allah never takes the soul of a Prophet except at the place where He wishes him to be buried.” All prophets are buried where they die. The discussion ends. They dig the grave beneath the very spot where his mattress had lain, in the house of ‘A’ishah.

Because there is no caliph yet, no single leader to lead the funeral prayer, the entire population of Madinah — men, women, children, tribe after tribe — files through the small room in waves across Tuesday and Wednesday, each group praying individually over the body. There is no congregational funeral prayer for the Prophet. Each Muslim stands alone before his beloved, and prays.

He is buried on Wednesday evening. When Fatimah enters the room afterward and sees the mound of earth where the bed had been, she turns to Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), the Prophet’s longtime servant, and says: “How could your souls have allowed you to throw sand upon the Messenger of Allah?”

Years later, Anas would say: “The day the Prophet arrived in Madinah was the brightest day of our lives. And the day he was buried was the darkest.”

The Brethren He Longed to Meet

Among the final teachings the Prophet delivered during his illness, as recorded in Ibn Majah in an authentic narration, was this counsel to the ummah: whoever suffers any calamity should take consolation from the calamity of losing the Prophet himself — for no disaster that will ever befall the Muslim community can compare to the disaster of his departure.

And among the most luminous hadith he ever spoke — one that reaches across the centuries and lands in the chest of every believer who has ever loved him without seeing him — is this:

“How I wish I could meet my brethren.” The Companions asked: “Are we not your brethren, O Messenger of Allah?” He said: “No, you are my companions. My brethren are those who come after you — who never saw me, and yet still believe in me. One of them would give up all his wealth and his family just to see me once.”

He was eager to meet them. He was eager to meet us — if we dare claim the title. If we dare live as though we love him. If we dare embody even a fraction of what he taught: the prayer guarded, the weak protected, the truth spoken, the heart turned always toward al-Rafiq al-A’la.

The Prophet is gone from this world. But in a small chamber in Madinah, beneath a floor that would one day bear a green dome, his body rests where it fell — in the house of ‘A’ishah, between her neck and her chest. And above that resting place, across the centuries, a mosque would grow, and a dome would rise, and the story of that sacred architecture — its builders, its defenders, and those who once tried to steal what lay beneath it — awaits its own telling.