Thus, the very first to believe in him was Khadijah, may Allah be pleased with her.

ʿIzz al-Dīn Abū al-Hasan Ibn al-Athīr said: “By the unanimous agreement of the Muslims, Khadijah was the first of Allah’s creation to enter Islam; no man or woman preceded her.”

Al-Zuhrī, Qatādah, Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, Ibn Isḥāq, al-Wāqidī, Saʿīd ibn Yaḥyā al-Umawī and others said: “The first to believe in Allah and His Messenger were Khadijah, Abu Bakr and ʿAlī.”

Ḥassān ibn Thābit and a group of scholars maintained that Abu Bakr was the earliest to embrace Islam.

More than one scholar, however, held that it was ʿAlī.

As for Ibn ʿAbbās, two reports are related from him on this matter. The sound view is that ʿAlī accepted Islam when he was about ten years old. Some say he was eight, others nine, still others twelve, and some fifteen—but that last view is anomalous. His son Muḥammad, Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir, Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī and others affirmed that he died at sixty-three, which necessitates that he embraced Islam at the age of ten. Indeed, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah narrated from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, from his father, that ʿAlī was killed at fifty-eight.

Ibn Isḥāq stated: “The first male to believe in Allah was ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—when he was ten years old; after him Zayd, the Prophet’s freedman, became Muslim, and then Abu Bakr.”

Al-Zuhrī said: “Khadijah was the first to believe in Allah and to accept the Messenger….”