What is the Garden Of Heaven or more commonly known as Jannatul Baqi?
It is the main cemetery in Madinah located right beside Masjid An-Nabawi. This cemetery has around 10,000 companions buried here including many notable companions of Rasulullah ﷺ such as Aisyah Bint Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, Uthman Ibn Affan and Scholars such as Imam Malik and his teacher Imam Nafi. May Allah be pleased with them all.
Among the blessed inhabitants of Jannatul Baqi, is As’ad Ibn Zurara, the first person to be buried there. Below are some snippets about this amazing Sahabi.
He was said to be the first convert of Madinah.
During hajj, the Prophet ﷺ gave dawah to six men from Yathrib and among them was As'ad. They embraced Islam and brought another six to give the pledge to the Prophet ﷺ. The next year, seventy people took the pledge of Al-Aqaba and the spokesperson of the Ansar on that day was As'ad.
He was the first man to break the idols in Yathrib.
He also used to gather people on Friday to remember Allah SWT
This was before Jumah was legislated. He would gather them and pray two rakaat (Zuhr used to be only two rakaat) in congregation. Abdur Rahman Ibn Kab said that whenever he would take his father out (who had lost his sight) for Friday prayer, his father on hearing the adhan would ask forgiveness and supplicate for As'ad. Abdur Rahman couldn't understand the reason behind it, so he asked his father. His father replied that As'ad was the first person to lead us in the Friday prayer before Rasulullah ﷺ came. At that time, there were around forty people.
As'ad was paired off with Talha Ibn Ubaidullah and Hamzah Ibn Abdul Muttalib in Al-Madinah, two great companions.
As'ad was the guardian of a garden that eventually became the Prophet's ﷺ mosque
The Prophet's ﷺ mosque was built at a place where used to be a garden belonging to two orphans (Sahal and Suhail) under the guardianship of As'ad. Rasulullah ﷺ bought it at a very high price. It was the same place where As'ad used to gather the people on Friday before Rasulullah's ﷺ arrival.