Bismillah arRahman arRaheem
1.
The Prophet (salAllahu’alayhi wa Salaam) said,
‘The believers before you were persecuted much more than you. Their bones were scraped with combs of iron and their heads were cut with saws, but still they did not give up their Faith. I assure you that Allah will fulfill this Mission, and there will come a period of such peace that one would travel from Sanna to Hadramaut, and he will have no fear from anyone, save Allah. But you people have already become impatient’.”
(Bukhari) This was in reference to Khabbab ibn Arat asking the Prophet (salAllahu’alayhi wa sallam) to make dua’ to Allah to help them, so the persecution would stop.
2.
‘Umar (Radiyallahu anhi) during his caliphate once inquired of Khabbab ibn al’Arat about the details of his sufferings after embracing Islam. He showed him his back, seeing which ‘Umar remarked, “I have never seen such a back before.” He said,
“My body was dragged over heaps of smoldering charcoal, and the blood and fat coming out of my back put out the fire.”
It is said that, when Islam spread and the Muslims conquered all the surrounding territory, he used to weep and say:
“Allah seems to be compensating us in this world for all our sufferings, and perhaps nothing would be left for us as reward in the Hereafter.”
3.
Rabi’ b. Sulayman said:
I saw al-Buwayti (al-Shafi’i's student) on a mule with iron collar around his neck and his feet tied up with chains. The collar and the chain were tied up with an iron chain with a brick attached weighing 40 Ratl (about 100 kg). He was saying: ‘Allah only created the creation with His word ‘Be’. If ‘Be’ was created, it is as if a creation created the creation. By God! I will die in these chains until there will come after me a people who will know that indeed a group of people died in chains for this cause!‘
Ibn alJawzi’s Manaqib alImam Ahmad [535]