Basra
Anas ibn Malik al-Ansari was about ten years old when his mother brought him to serve the Prophet ﷺ on his arrival in Madinah, and he remained in his…
Anas ibn Malik al-Ansari was about ten years old when his mother brought him to serve the Prophet ﷺ on his arrival in Madinah, and he remained in his household for the next ten years, which earned him the name Khadim al-Nabi, the Servant of the Prophet. He was present at al-Hudaybiya, Khaybar, the Conquest of Makkah and the Farewell Pilgrimage, and became one of the most prolific narrators of hadith, through whom a great deal of what is known of the Prophet's ﷺ daily life was passed on. Anas settled in Basra in the time of Umar and taught there for decades. He passed away in the city in 93 AH at about a hundred years of age, among the very last of the Companions, and was buried outside it. His shrine stands in open country at Shu'ayba, west of Basra and about twenty minutes from the city centre, a short way off the road to al-Zubayr. It is a simple shrine that has been honoured as his grave for many centuries, and visitors often combine it with the graves of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, Utba ibn Ghazwan and Hasan al-Basri in al-Zubayr nearby.