Khālid ibn Maʿdān

Khālid ibn Maʿdān
by Sh. G. F. Haddad

Khālid ibn Maʿdān ibn Abī Karib al-Kilāʿī (d. ~ 103-105) the saintly Tābiʿī Imām of H.ims. in Syro-Palestine. He met seventy Companions but most of his narrations from the Companions are missing a link (mursal). He is one of the trustworthy early Imāms of fiqh and h.adīth Masters. Al-Walīd wrote him about a certain matter. When Khālid answered, al-Walīd instructed all the judges to apply his answer.

ʿUmar ibn Juʿthum said: "Whenever Khālid ibn Maʿdān sat in a gathering, no-one dared to mention the world in front of him out of awe before him."

H.abīb ibn S.ālih. said: "We feared no-one as much as we feared Khālid ibn Maʿdān." Among those who narrated from him are his daughter ʿAbda. Al-Awzāʿī held him in such esteem that he ordered his students to visit his daughter and learn from her about the ways of her father. S.afwān ibn ʿAmr said that whenever the people were ordered to raid, Khālid's tent was the first to be seen up at the boder-point in Dābiq near Aleppo. Among his sayings:

- "If death were a science no-one but a stronger man would have preceded me to it." Sufyān al-Thawrī never ceased loving Khālid after he heard this word reported to him.

- "A man does not attain superlative understanding (lā yafqahu al-rajulu kulla al-fiqh) until he sees people as gnats in the presence of Allāh then returns to his own self and despises that self more than anything."

- "Every son of the earth (ādamī) has four eyes: two in his head to see the things of this world, and two in his heart to see the things of the hereafter. When Allāh desires great good for one of His servants, He opens for him the eyes of the heart so that he can see the unseen that was promised to him."

- "When Ibrāhīm the Friend ate grapes he would eat them one by one and remember Allāh with each one."

- "Eating and lauding is better than eating silently."

- "When one of you opens a good opportunity let him go to it quickly for he knows not when it will be closed again for him."

- "The eye is property and the self is property. The best property of a servant is what benefits him and is spent by him. The worst of your property is **what you neither see nor does it see you, although you are accountable for it and its benefit goes to another!**"

- "Whoever seeks praise in disregard of the Almighty, He will turn this praise into blame for him; and whoever cares little for blame in regard of the Almighty, He will turn these blames into praise for him."

Whenever he went to bed Khālid would mention how much he missed the Prophet ﷺ and the Companions. He would name them one by one and say: "They are my roots and sinews, my heart longs for them, I miss them so much! My Lord! Take me to You!" repeating this until sleep overcame him. Salama ibn Shabīb said that Khālid ibn Maʿdān made forty thousand tasbīh. daily, aside from his recitation of Qur'ān. When he died and was placed on his bed for his washing, his finger moved by itself in tasbīh.. He died fasting.

Source: al-Dhahabī, Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalā' (5:438-441 #583).