“I said: ‘O Prophet of Allah, I did not come to you until I had sworn more than this many times” the number of fingers on his hands “that I would never come to you or follow your religion. I am a man who does not know anything except that which Allah, the Mighty and Sublime, and His Messenger teach me. I ask you by the Revelation of Allah, with what has your Lord sent your to us? He said: “With Islam.’ I said: ‘What are the signs of Islam?’ He said: ‘To say, I submit my face to Allah and give up Shirk, and to establish the Salah and to pay the Zakah.”‘
“The Prophet said to me: ‘If you swear an oath, and you see something that is better, then do that which is better and offer expiation for your oath.'”
In the time of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) we used to be called brokers, but the Prophet (ﷺ) came upon us one day, and called us by a better name than that, saying: O company of merchants, unprofitable speech and swearing takes place in business dealings, so mix it with sadaqah (alms).
We used to say in the times of the Prophet (ﷺ): We do not compare anyone with Abu Bakr. ’Umar came next and then ‘Uthman. We then would leave (rest of) the companions of the Prophet (ﷺ) without treating any as superior to other.
“My paternal uncle Anas bin An-Nadr – after whom I was named – did not participate in the battle of Badr with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). This distressed him and he said: ‘I was absent from the first battle which the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) attended. By Allah! If Allah gives me the opportunity to participate in another battle along with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), then Allah will see what I will do!'” He said: “He did not want to say more than that. A year later, he attended the battle of Uhud, where he saw Sa’d bin Mu’adh and said: ‘O Abu ‘Amr where are you going?’ He said: ‘I long for the fragrance of Paradise and I have found it near the mountains of Uhud.’ He fought them until he was killed. They found more than eighty wounds on his body, be they from blows of a sword, puncture wounds, or arrows. My paternal aunt Ar-Ruba’i bin An-Nadr said: ‘I could not recognize my brother except by his finger tips.’ And this Ayah was revealed: ‘Among the believers are men who have been true to their covenant with Allah; of them some have fulfilled their vow, and some of them are still waiting, but they have never changed in the least (33:23).'”
“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) forbade vows and said: ‘They are just a means of taking wealth from the miserly.”‘