Yaʽfūr (also variously rendered as Yaʽfoor, Yaʽfour, ʽUfayr, ʽOfayr and so on, meaning "Deer" in Arabic) was a donkey used as a mount by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who was said to have often ridden it without harness.
The tradition holds that Yaʽfūr committed suicide in despair after Muhammad died by throwing itself into a well, though these accounts are held to be unreliable in hadith studies.
In return, Muqawqis sent the donkey, the mule Duldul, four slave girls, a eunuch, a horse, 1000 mithqals of gold and quantities of Egyptian goods and articles.
[5] The donkey is the subject of a hadith (an account of the sayings and deeds of Muhammad) which holds that it had the power of speech[citation needed].
He declined to call it this, instead giving it the name of Yaʽfūr[6] (a name which, according to another Islamic tradition, was shared by the donkey ridden by Jesus during his triumphal entry into Jerusalem[5]).
[6] An alternative hadith transmitted in Syria holds that Yaʽfūr's colour was black rather than sandy, that its previous name was 'Amr rather than Yazīd or Ziyād, and that it was the last of seven siblings ridden by prophets, rather than being the last of a line of sixty donkeys.
[citation needed] In the lands where Sunni Islam was practised, Yaʽfūr was repeatedly invoked in political and religious events for centuries after Muhammad's death.
[9] In the wider context, the story of Muhammad's donkey can be seen in the light of such animals being seen as religiously significant in the Near and Middle East for thousands of years.