I said, “How excellent is that with which you have been sent! Who stands with you in this?”
He replied, “A free man and a slave”—meaning Abu Bakr and Bilāl. [‘Amr would later say, “I saw myself as one quarter of Islam.”]

He continued: I therefore accepted Islam. I asked, “Shall I follow you, O Messenger of Allah?” He said,
“No. Rather, return to your people; and when you are informed that I have set out, then join me.”

It is said that the phrase “a free man and a slave” is generic, and restricting it to Abu Bakr and Bilāl alone is open to question, for several people had become Muslim before ‘Amr ibn ʿAbasah, and Zayd ibn Ḥārithah accepted Islam even before Bilāl. Hence he may have described himself as “one quarter of Islam” according to what he personally knew, because at that time the believers were concealing (2) their faith; few of their own relatives—let alone outsiders or desert Bedouins—knew of it. Allah knows best.

Al-Bukhārī also records (3), through Abū Usāmah from Hāshim ibn Hāshim, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, that Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ said: “No one embraced Islam on the day I did, and seven days passed while I was still one third of all the Muslims.”

His statement, “No one embraced Islam on the day I did,” poses no difficulty. Another wording, “No one except me embraced Islam on that day,” is problematic, for it would imply that no one preceded him. Yet it is well known that the Truthful One (Abu Bakr), ʿAlī, Khadījah, and Zayd ibn Ḥārithah had already accepted Islam, and more than one scholar—among them Ibn al-Athīr—has reported consensus on their precedence. Abū Ḥanīfah (may Allah have mercy on him) likewise affirmed that each of them was the first of his category to enter Islam. Allah knows best.

As for his remark, “Seven days passed while I was one third of Islam,” this too is puzzling; I know of no explanation for it unless he spoke only according to what he himself knew. Allah knows best.

Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī (4) narrated: Ḥammād ibn Salamah related to us, from ʿĀṣim, from Zirr, from ʿAbdullāh—meaning Ibn Masʿūd—who said:
“I was a strong youth tending the sheep of ʿUqbah ibn Abī Muʿayṭ in Mecca. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ and Abu Bakr passed by—having escaped from the idolaters—and he (or they) said, ‘Young man, do you have any milk with which you can give us to drink?’ I replied, ‘I am entrusted with these animals; I am not authorized to give you their milk.’
“He then asked, ‘Do you have a young she-goat (5) that the male has not yet covered?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ I brought it to them; Abu Bakr held it, while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ grasped the udder and supplicated until it filled with milk. Abu Bakr fetched a hollowed-out stone (6); the Prophet milked into it, then he drank, Abu Bakr drank, and they gave me to drink. He then said to the udder, ‘Contract,’ and it contracted. Some time later …”