Who were seek the blessing of the Prophet’s hair

It is worth mentioning to say that the doings of the Prophet’s companions is an argument against the Wahabis, because they believe that all the companions totally are just and honest, and they claim that they imitate them. They call themselves as Salafis meaning that they follow the “pious ancients” and that all the companions were pious and righteous in their view.

Al-Bukhari has mentioned in his Sahih that Malik ibn Ismaeel narrated from Israel ibn Aasim from Ibn Sirin who said, “Once, I said to Ubaydah, ‘We have some of the Prophet’s hair. We have got it from Anas or the family of Anas.’ He said, ‘If I have one hair from him, it shall be more beloved to me than the world and all what there is in it.’”[1]

Al-Bukhari also mentioned a tradition narrated by Muhammad ibn Abdurraheem from Sa’eed ibn Sulayman from Etad from ibn Sirin that Anas said, “When the messenger of Allah (a.s.) had his hair cut, Abu Talha was the first one to take from his (the Prophet’s cut) hair.”[2]

Since Anas ibn Malik, the famous companion, kept the Prophet’s hair and gave from it to his relatives and friends, and since a companion said, “If I have one hair from him, it shall be more beloved to me than the world and all what there is in it”, (I swear) by my life, this is the clearest evidence that the  

companions sought blessing in the belongings of the Prophet (a.s.) and everything related to him. And, by my life, this refutes the Wahabis who beat the hajjis who seek blessing in the Prophet’s belongings.

In my book ‘Then I was Guided’, I have mentioned the nice story of the Shia scholars who offered a copy of the Holy Qur'an wrapped in leather as gift to the Saudi king at that time. The king kissed the Qur'an and put it on his forehead as a kind of honoring. The Shia Scholar said to the king, “Why did you kiss the leather and honor it?”

The king said, “When I kissed the leather, I intended what there was inside the leather, which is the Holy Qur'an.”

The Shia scholar said, “And so do we! When we kiss the window of the Prophet’s room (inside which he has been buried), we know that it is iron, which neither benefits nor harms, but we mean what is beyond the iron, and it is the messenger of Allah (a.s.).”