Thalaba Ibn Abdul Rahman (RadiyAllahu Anhu) was a young man at the age of 16. He always ran errands for the prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam). One day while walking though the city of Medina, he passed by a house with an open door. Out of curiosity he took a glance inside. In this glance, he saw a light curtain being blown away from a bathroom entrance were a woman was bathing. He immediately lowered his gaze.
With an extreme feeling of guilt and hypocrisy his mind ran. Thinking to himself, How could I be of the companions? One that is close to the prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam), one who runs his errands and be so horrible as to disrespect peoples privacy?
He feared that Allah would reveal to the prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) evidence of his hypocrisy. His guilt denied him to ever show his face to the prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam). So he ran away.
Days went by and the prophet kept asking the other companions if they had seen Thalaba. No one had seen him. With the prophet’s (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) worry about Thalaba he sent a few of the companions to look for him everywhere, among them were Omar Ibn Al Khattab and Salman Al Farisiy (RadiyAllahu Anhuma).
They looked everywhere in Medina, and on the out skirts of Madina, until they came about a set of mountains between Mecca and Medina where some nomads where herding sheep. The companions asked the nomads if they had seen a young man with Thalaba’s characteristics. They told the companions about a weeping boy. He had been here for 40 days. He came down from the mountains once a day weeping and drank the milk they would offer him. Then he went back up the mountains weeping, crying, always asking for Allah for forgiveness, and saying words of repentance. So the companions waited until he came down and watched him. He had lost weight. His countenance reflected sorrow as he drank the milk that was mixed with his tears.
The companions insisted that they take him back to the prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) but he refused and asked them if Allah had revealed verses saying he was a hypocrite. They told him that they had no knowledge of any such verses. He was taken back to Medina where the prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) went to see him. He asked again if Allah had put him among the hypocrites or revealed that he was. The prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) assured him that there were no such verses. He laid out Thalaba’s (RadiyAllahu Anhu) tired, weak body and placed Thalaba’s (RA) head on his lap.
He said: “Oh prophet of Allah remove the head of a sinner away from you.”
The prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) comforted him until he told the prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) I feel as though ants are walking between my flesh and bones. The prophet told him it was death and his time had come. He witnessed while Thalaba’s (RA) head was on his lap, Thalaba (RadiyAllahu Anhu) proclaimed, ‘There is no god worthy of worship other than Allah, and that Mohamed (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) is the messenger of Allah.’
The prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) washed Thalaba and carried him to the grave. It is narrated that on their way to bury Thalaba, the prophet (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) walked on his tippy toes as though he were in a crowd. When Omar asked about this, the prophet pbuh explained that he was being crowded with the angels.