Explanation of the report of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: "I am the first of the Arabs to shoot an arrow in the cause of Allah"

The Shaykh : We return to the hadiths of encouragement and warning, and we are on our previous condition that we mentioned repeatedly, which is to select from them what is established from the hadith. Our hadith tonight is in my copy with the number . It says: And from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas (may Allah be pleased with him), he said: "I am the first of the Arabs to shoot an arrow in the cause of Allah, and we used to go on expeditions with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) having no food except the leaves of the hublah and this samur, until one of us would pass excrement as a sheep passes excrement, with no mixture in it." It was narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim.
He explains some of its unusual terms, saying: The hublah: with a dammah on the hah and a sukun on the ba, and the samur: with a fathah on the sin and a dammah on the mim. Both are from the trees of the desert; meaning they have no fruit. This was their food.
We used to go on expeditions with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) having no food except the leaves of the hublah, which is a tree in the deserts and wilderness, and this samur is also another type of tree from those lands. This type of tree causes constipation inside the person; therefore, he describes this constipation that they suffered from due to eating this leaf, finding no place or alternative for it in food.
He said: Until one of us would pass excrement as a sheep passes excrement, with no mixture in it. "Passes excrement" means he would suffer from constipation, and it is as if a woman is giving birth, how much difficulty she encounters! Some of those afflicted with chronic constipation feel this; he treats it much and much until he expels his waste. It passed with us in some hadiths that they would pass excrement like goat dung; why? Because there was no mixture in it; there was no other food for them to eat that would mix with that food and soften it, but rather it was dry like stone; therefore, when they went out to relieve themselves, they would pass excrement as a sheep passes excrement, finding difficulty due to this constipation resulting from eating the leaves of the tree which has no sweetness and none of the nutrients that soften the interior.
This was the food of whom? The food of those warrior Companions who conquered these lands for us. And from here we take a lesson that the generation that grows up in luxury and comfort and enjoying all the pleasures of life, it is difficult for them to strive in this struggle in the cause of Allah (Mighty and Majestic); because the human being, by the nature of being human, has his instincts and his dispositions; the more he is accustomed to loving the world and turning toward it and desiring it, the more he turns away from everything that contradicts this life, and especially death in the cause of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). So they are two connected matters: the more a person is saturated with his world, the more he turns away from his Hereafter and from everything that leads to it. And the greatest thing that leads to the Hereafter and hastens the person to it is usually jihad in the cause of Allah; and the opposite of that: if the person is not turning toward the world, then his turning toward the Hereafter is his constant concern and his affair.
And we see events and read every day that some of those who are afflicted with something that bothers them in this world, and they do not have faith in the Hereafter, and they do not have any of the patience that the Muslim is commanded to possess when he is afflicted with any of the calamities of this world; we find some of these people hasten to their own death; and that is by killing themselves; why? Because he no longer has any desire for this world for any reason; so the desire for the world diverts the person from the Hereafter, and the desire for the Hereafter diverts him from the world. And this does not mean that he should not work for his world at all. Here, faith and Islam intervene to adjust the reality of the person; so he is not one who turns toward his world such that he forgets his Hereafter and loses it, nor is he one who turns toward the Hereafter entirely such that he forgets his world, and then he also loses his Hereafter; because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) made this world the farm of the Hereafter.
The point of the hadith is that the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) were living a very severe life; therefore, they were patient with all patience regarding death, not caring at all, because what Allah had stored for them in the Hereafter of permanent bliss made them forget what they encountered of the severity of life and the hardship of existence in their world, even while they were going out as warriors in the cause of Allah (Mighty and Majestic).
Among the virtues of Sa'd, as he himself testifies—and he is among the most truthful of people—he said: "I am the first of the Arabs to shoot an arrow in the cause of Allah (Mighty and Majestic)." The soul yearns in reality to know the details of this matter, but in what I was able to do, I did not find a narration that explains this precedence, when it was and how it was. But in any case, he reports this virtue that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) distinguished him with; and that is that he was the first to shoot an arrow in the cause of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). Was this in one of the known battles, or was it in a non-battle for another occasion? That is something I have not come across.
So this man, who as you all know is one of the ten promised Paradise, says: "And we used to go on expeditions with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) having no food except the leaves of the hublah and this samur—two trees as we mentioned—until one of us would pass excrement as a sheep passes excrement, with no mixture in it."