Waraqah ibn Nawfal

Waraka (or Waraqah) ibn Nawfal ibn Asad ibn Abd-al-Uzza ibn Qusayy Al-Qurashi (Arabic ورقه بن نوفل بن أسد بن عبد العزّى بن قصي القرشي) was the paternal first cousin of Khadija, the first wife of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Waraka and Khadija were also the first cousins twice removed of Muhammad: their paternal grandfather Asad ibn Abd-al-Uzza was Muhammad’s matrilineal great-great-grandfather. By another reckoning, Waraka was Muhammad's third cousin once removed: Asad ibn Abd-al-Uzza was a grandson of Muhammad's patrilineal great-great-great-grandfather Qusai ibn Kilab.

Waraka was a Nestorian priest and is revered in Islamic tradition for being one of the first hanifs to believe in the prophecy of Muhammad.

Waraka studied the Bible under Jews and Christians and read an Arabic translation of the New Testament. He also "wrote the New Testament in Arabic," but it is not clear whether this means that he translated it from the Greek or merely wrote out someone else's translation so that he would have his own copy.

It is said that in 576 Waraka found a lost five-year-old boy wandering around Upper Mecca. This was Muhammad; and it was Waraka who returned him to his grandfather Abdul Muttalib in the Kaaba.

Once in the heat of the day Waraka passed an open valley, where Umayyah ibn Khalaf was forcing his slave Bilal to lie with a large rock on his chest until he denied his faith and worshipped Al-lāt and Al-‘Uzzá. Bilal kept insisting, "One, one!" i.e., there was only one God. Waraka rejoined, "One, one, by God, Bilal!" He then protested against the abuse, telling Umayyah and his clan: "I swear by God that if you kill him in this way, I will make his tomb a shrine." Umayyah took no notice. Ibn Kathir doubts this tradition because the persecution of the Muslims only began several years after Waraka's death. Also capable slaves were very costly, hence it would be counter intuitive to harm your own investment. However, Sprenger points out that Bilal, being ancestrally Abyssinian, was probably a Christian before he was a Muslim, and it may be possible that Umayyah was persecuting him for this reason before 610. In that case, the story that Waraka tried to help his co-religionist is likely to be true.

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