Hakim ibn Hizam

Hakim ibn Hizam ibn Khuwaylid al-Asadi al-Qurashi, nephew of Khadija the Prophet's wife; kunya Abu Khalid, with hadith in the Six Books ¹.

Musa ibn Uqba relates from Abu Habiba, al-Zubayr's client, that Hakim said: "I was born thirteen years before the Elephant", and that he was a reasoning child when Abd al-Muttalib meant to sacrifice his son Abdullah; al-Waqidi adds that was five years before the Prophet's birth ¹. His father was killed in the Fijar war which Hakim witnessed, and al-Zubayr ibn Bakkar relates he was born inside the Ka'ba ¹. He held the rifada (feeding duty), did good and kept kinship-ties, and was a scholar of Quraysh's genealogies and lore ¹.

He was the Prophet's friend before the mission, loving and beloved after it, but his Islam came late, in the conquest year; the Prophet said: "whoever enters Hakim ibn Hizam's house is safe" ¹. He had witnessed Badr with the disbelievers and escaped, and when he swore an oath in earnest would say: "by Him who saved me on the day of Badr" ¹.

He was among those whose hearts are won over — he witnessed Hunayn and was given a hundred camels of its spoils — then his Islam became good ¹. In the Sahih he asked the Prophet about things he used to do in the Jahiliyya — is there reward in them? He said: "you came to Islam upon what good had gone before from you" ¹.

The Dar al-Nadwa (see the Dar al-Nadwa plot) was in his hands; he sold it to Mu'awiya for a hundred thousand dirhams, and when Ibn al-Zubayr blamed him he answered: "nephew, I bought with it a house in Paradise" — and gave all the dirhams in alms ¹.

He lived a hundred twenty years — half in the Jahiliyya, half in Islam ¹. His year of death is disputed: fifty, or "year four" (so the printed text), or fifty-eight, or sixty ¹. Bukhari in al-Tarikh says he died in year sixty at a hundred twenty years of age ¹.