Mu'adh ibn Jabal
معاذ بن جبل
c. 603 CE – 639 CE · 18 AH† †
† Hijri date derived by computation from the Gregorian/Julian date; it may differ from the transmitted date by a day or two.
Medina → Yemen → Amwas (Emmaus)
A young Ansari convert of the pledges of Aqaba, remembered as the most learned of the community in what is lawful and forbidden; the Prophet sent him to Yemen as its teacher and judge.
At a glance
- Roles
- Companion · Scholar
- Tradition
- Sunni
- Era
- The Prophetic Era · The Rashidun Caliphate
- Region
- Arabia · Levant & Iraq
- Review
- Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it
In time
In space
Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph
Da'wa and Christian missionDevelopment of law, theology and institutionsIslam and Judaism
Place in the story
- Convert to Islam · 621 CETradition
- Companion · 621 CETradition
- MissionarytowardYemen · 631 CE · 10 AH† – 632 CE · 11 AH†Tradition
- Scholar · c. 630 CE · c. 9 AH†Tradition
Sunni (transmitted)
Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.
Brief
Mu'adh ibn Jabal was a teenager of Medina when he pledged to the Prophet at Aqaba — and grew into the man the tradition calls the most learned of the community in what is lawful and forbidden.
Life
A youth of the Khazraj tribe, Mu'adh embraced Islam at the second pledge of Aqaba in 621, aged about eighteen 1. He fought at Badr and through the Medinan years.
Near the end the Prophet sent him to Yemen — to teach Islam, collect the alms and judge disputes 2. The tradition preserves their parting dialogue: asked how he would judge, Mu'adh answered "by the Book of God; failing that, by the Prophet's example; failing that, by my own reasoning" — a formula the law schools still quote 1.
Recalled to Medina, he went on to Syria with the armies and died there in 639 CE in the plague of Amwas 1.
Legacy
His answer to the Prophet — book, example, reason — became the skeleton key of Islamic jurisprudence: the ancestor of every textbook's chapter on sources of law.
For young visitors
The Prophet sent Mu'adh to teach a whole country when he was still young — and his answer about how to judge became a rule Muslims still study.
Connections
- Born in
- Medina
- Died in
- Amwas (Emmaus)
- Member of
- Banu KhazrajThe Ansar
- Participated in
- The Pledges of AqabaThe Battle of BadrKa'b ibn Malik puts off his preparations for TabukThe letter of the kings of Himyar
- Traveled to
- Yemen
- Mentioned in
- Ka'b ibn Malik's account of staying behind at TabukArba'un 18 — fear God wherever you are
People and things also explored
MedinaMuhammadThe HijraThe three who were left behind after Tabukal-Abbas ibn Abd al-MuttalibAbdullah ibn Amr ibn Haramal-Abbas ibn Ubadaal-Bara ibn Ma'rur
Sources
- Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir (Bewley translation, Ta-Ha)
- Ibn Ishaq / Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (1955)
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Mu'adh ibn Jabal”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/muadh-ibn-jabal/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Accessed 2026-10-12.