'Abbaad ibn Bishr (RA) and the prayer nothing could interrupt

The story

People who knew 'Abbaad ibn Bishr kept describing him the same strange way — as someone who seemed to carry an actual light with him. Companions said that if he walked through total darkness, something would glow faintly along his path, guiding his steps. 'Aa'ishah once placed him among only three Ansaar nobody else could match in virtue, alongside Sa'd ibn Mu'aadh and Usaid ibn Hudair. Nobody could quite explain the light. But there was one night that came close.

'Abbaad was on watch, paired that night with 'Ammaar ibn Yaasir. Noticing how worn out his companion looked, he told him to take the first stretch of sleep — he'd cover the watch alone and wake him when it was time. The area seemed calm enough, so rather than sit through the silence doing nothing, he decided to spend it in prayer instead.

He was partway through his recitation when he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. He kept reciting. A second pain followed out of the dark, and he kept reciting through that one too — finishing the surah, then moving into his bowing and prostration exactly as he would on any ordinary night. Only once the prayer was completely finished did he wake 'Ammaar. "Stand guard in my place," he said. "Something has happened to me." 'Ammaar shot up, chased off whoever was out there in the dark, then turned back and understood everything at once. "Why didn't you wake me the moment it happened?" There was nothing he would have given up, 'Abbaad told him, rather than cut short verses that had filled him with that much awe.

That was the light people meant, whether they knew it or not. Not something mystical glowing in the dark, but a man who simply refused to let his own pain reach the part of him that was still reciting.