The Letters to the Kings

Some time after the Hijrah to Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ wrote a letter to the Najashi, the Christian king of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). This letter is not to be confused with the dawah that Ja'far ibn Abi Talib RA gave the Najashi more than ten years earlier, when the first Muslim emigrants lived in Abyssinia. By the time of the letter, Ja'far had most likely already left. The text of the letter reported by Ibn al-Qayyim begins, "In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. From Muhammad ﷺ the Messenger of God ﷺ to Negus, King of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Peace be upon him who follows true guidance." It sets out the Islamic belief about Isa (Jesus): "I bear witness that Jesus, the son of Mary, is the spirit of God and His Word which He cast into Mary, the virgin, the good, the pure, so that she conceived Jesus. God created him from His spirit and His breathing as He created Adam by His Hand." It then calls the Najashi to worship God alone and to follow the Prophet ﷺ. Other accounts of the letter add that it invited him with the words "Aslim taslam," meaning "submit to God and you will be safe." They also say it ended with the verse "O People of the Book! Let us come to common terms: that we will worship none but God, associate none with Him, nor take one another as lords instead of God" (Qur'an 3:64). The letters to Heraclius of Rome and Khosrow of Persia warned that each ruler would carry the sins of his people if he refused. The letter to the Najashi had no such warning, most likely because the Prophet ﷺ knew he was already close to Islam. According to al-Bayhaqi, the Najashi wrote back, "I am a Muslim: I believe in you and all that you say. And if you command me, O Prophet of God ﷺ, I will come to Madinah and serve you."

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 71 begins with the letter to the Najashi; the letters went out after Hudaybiyyah, c. 7 AH, and their order is not fixed.

After the truce of Hudaybiyyah, the Prophet ﷺ was free to look beyond Arabia. He wrote letters to the rulers of the world, and the most famous of them went to Caesar, the Roman emperor. The emperor at that time was Heraclius, who reigned from 610 to 641. Muslim and non-Muslim historians alike remember him kindly. Heraclius was a scholar of Christianity. He tried, and failed, to reconcile its two great factions with a theology of his own. He was also a soldier. He had just won back everything the Persians had taken from Rome, as Surah al-Rum had foretold at a time when Rome seemed finished. Dihyah al-Kalbi carried the letter. He was to hand it to the governor of Busra, a town where the Quraysh went to trade, who would send it on. As it happened, Heraclius was in Jerusalem at the time, so the letter reached him at once. Abu Sufyan, who was still a pagan, was trading in Busra at the time. A crier summoned him and his companions to Jerusalem, and he found himself standing in the emperor's palace. Through an interpreter, Heraclius asked which of them was the closest relative of the man who claimed to be a prophet. Abu Sufyan was, so he was seated in front. His companions stood behind him, with orders to signal if he lied. He said afterwards that only the fear of being called a liar by his own people made him tell the truth. The emperor asked his questions one after another. He asked about the man's family, and Abu Sufyan said it was noble. He asked whether anyone among them had made this claim before him, and Abu Sufyan said no. He asked whether any of his ancestors had been a king, and again the answer was no. He asked whether the nobles followed him or the poor. Abu Sufyan said the poor. Heraclius asked whether his followers were growing or shrinking in number. Abu Sufyan said they were growing. He asked whether anyone who had entered his religion later left it in disgust. Abu Sufyan said no. He asked whether the man had ever been accused of lying before he began his mission. Again the answer was no. Heraclius asked whether he broke his word. Abu Sufyan said no. But he added that there was a truce between them now, and no one knew what he would do. Abu Sufyan admitted later that this was the one thing he could find to say against him. Heraclius asked whether they had fought him. Abu Sufyan said yes, and that sometimes he won and sometimes they did. Finally Heraclius asked what the man commanded. Abu Sufyan told him that he commanded them to worship God alone and abandon the gods of their fathers. He also told them to pray, to speak the truth, to be chaste, and to keep the ties of kinship. Then Heraclius explained why he had asked each question. Prophets, he said, come from noble families. If someone else had made the claim before, this man might be imitating him. If his fathers had been kings, he might be trying to win back his inheritance. A man who does not lie about money does not lie about God. The poor are always the first to follow the prophets. The truth always gains followers. Faith that has entered a heart and mixed with it is not thrown off. Prophets do not betray. And what this man commanded was what the prophets had always commanded. Heraclius said that if all this was true, the man would soon rule the very ground he was standing on. He said he had known from his scriptures that someone was coming, but he had not expected him to come from the Arabs. If he could reach him, he said, he would wash his feet. Then Heraclius called for the letter and had it read aloud. It began in the name of Allah. It was from Muhammad ﷺ, the servant of Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, to Heraclius, the great one of the Romans. It sent peace to whoever follows guidance. It told him to submit and be safe, and Allah would give him a double reward. If he turned away, he would carry the sins of the Arisiyin, a word whose meaning scholars have long debated. The letter closed with the verse of Ali Imran that calls the People of the Book to a word held in common, that none be worshipped but Allah. There was uproar in the court, and the Arabs were sent out. On the way out, Abu Sufyan spoke to his companions. The Quraysh mockingly called the Prophet ﷺ "Ibn Abi Kabsha", and Abu Sufyan said that the affair of Ibn Abi Kabsha had grown so great that even the king of the Romans feared him. He said later that it was there, in Caesar's palace, that Islam first entered his heart. That was three years before he actually embraced it. Sahih al-Bukhari keeps a second story about Heraclius, told separately from the first. One morning he woke up troubled by a dream in which he had seen the king of the circumcised appear. His courtiers told him that only the Jews were circumcised, and that he need only crack down on them. Then Dihyah arrived with the Prophet ﷺ's letter. When he was examined, he was found to be circumcised, and the emperor understood whom the dream was about. Heraclius wrote to a friend of his, most likely John IV. The friend wrote back that this was indeed the one. One theory, not stated in the sources, is that this same friend supplied the three tests that Heraclius later sent the Tanukhi to carry out. At last Heraclius gathered his senators and asked them what they thought of his following Muhammad ﷺ. They rushed for the doors, so he told them he had only been testing their faith. He died a Christian, in the confusion of a coup. He lived long enough to see Jerusalem taken by the people of his dream.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 71: "The second most famous letter is that to Caesar"; it reached Heraclius in Jerusalem, and the truce with the Quraysh was still in force.

The Prophet ﷺ sent Abdullah ibn Hudhafah al-Sahmi with a letter to the ruler of Bahrain, to be passed on to Khosrow (Kisra), Emperor of Persia, inviting him to Islam. Khosrow mocked the messenger and tore up the letter in front of him.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 71 tells it after Caesar's; Khosrow tore the letter and died on 28 February 628, in 7 AH.

The Prophet ﷺ sent a letter to the Muqawqis of Egypt. "Muqawqis" was a title, like "Caesar", and the man who held it was Jurayj ibn Mina. He was not an independent king but a governor appointed by Rome, since Egypt was then under Byzantine rule. He appears to be the man known in history as Cyrus of Alexandria, a Melkite Christian patriarch and the last Byzantine prefect of Egypt. No authentic narration preserves the exact text of the letter. The Muqawqis did not embrace Islam, but his reply was polite, and he sent a small fortune in gifts. There were about 1,000 mithqal (4.25 kg) of gold, fine garments, honey, and a riding animal called Duldul (a mule in one telling, a donkey in another). He also sent a servant named Ma'boor and two Coptic Christian sisters, Maria and Sirin. A man may not keep two sisters at the same time, so the Prophet ﷺ gave Sirin to the poet Hassan ibn Thabit. She and Hassan had a son, Abd al-Rahman. The Prophet ﷺ kept Maria for himself.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 71 tells it after Khosrow's; no date is given.

This is the story of a second letter between the Prophet ﷺ and Heraclius, the Roman emperor. Unlike the first, it is not in al-Bukhari. It is found in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad. It was told by the Tanukhi himself, a Christian Arab of the tribe of Tanukh whose name was never recorded. In his old age, at nearly a hundred, he lived in Hims, and a neighbor of his there, Sa'id ibn Abi Rashid, asked him about the letters. The Tanukhi said that when the Prophet ﷺ came to Tabuk, he sent Dihyah al-Kalbi to Heraclius with a letter. Heraclius had seen how much this man had achieved since the first letter. He locked himself in his palace with his patriarchs and priests, and suggested that they follow the Prophet ﷺ, or at least make peace with him. The priests were outraged and rushed for the door. Heraclius then told them he had only been testing how firm they were. After this, Heraclius asked for an Arabic speaker who could carry a message and remember what was said, and the Tanukhi was brought to him. Heraclius gave him a letter and told him to check three things. Would the Prophet ﷺ mention the letters he had written? Would he say anything about night when he read Heraclius's letter? And was there a mark on his back? The Tanukhi found the Prophet ﷺ sitting with his Companions by the well at Tabuk, and handed him the letter. The Prophet ﷺ put it aside and asked where he was from. Then he invited him to Islam, the hanifiyyah, the religion of his father Ibrahim. The Tanukhi replied that he was an ambassador for a people with their own religion, and would not change it while on their mission. He would go home and think about it. The Prophet ﷺ laughed and recited the verse, "You do not guide those whom you love, rather, Allah guides those whom He pleases" (28:56). Then the Prophet ﷺ said, "O you person of Tanukh, I wrote a letter to Kisra of Persia, and he ripped it apart, so Allah will rip his kingdom apart. And I wrote a letter to the Najashi, and he ripped it apart, so Allah will rip his kingdom apart. And I wrote my letter to your companion, and he kept it safe, so people will continue to see his strength as long as there is some good to life." This Najashi was not the righteous king who had sheltered the Muslims, but his son, who ruled after him. That was the first sign, and the Tanukhi scratched a mark on his parchment with an arrow from his quiver. He asked who could read the letter to the Prophet ﷺ, and Mu'awiyah was called to read it. In it, Heraclius asked where Hell could be, if the Prophet ﷺ was inviting him to a Garden as wide as the heavens and the earth. The Prophet ﷺ answered, "Subhan'Allah, where does the night go when the day comes?" That was the second sign, and the Tanukhi marked it down. The Prophet ﷺ then said that an ambassador had a right to a gift, but that they were traveling and had nothing to give. Uthman stood up and gave the Tanukhi a yellow robe, and an Ansari took him home as his guest for the night. The next day, when the Tanukhi stood up to leave, the third sign was still unchecked. The Prophet ﷺ called him, "Come here, O person of Tanukh." When he stood in front of him, the Prophet ﷺ pulled back his garment and said, "Come and look at what your master has told you to look at." The Tanukhi saw the Seal of Prophethood between his shoulder blades, and said it looked like a large cupping mark. He went back to Heraclius with all three signs confirmed. Some say he later became a Muslim, and others say he remained a Christian.

Placed here because: Ep. 91: "The Prophet ﷺ came to Tabuk, and he sent Dihyah al-Kalbi [with a letter] to Hiraqal ... this is the second letter to Heraclius."

Heraclius, the Roman emperor, once woke up troubled. He said that he had seen a dream, and that his astrologers had read an evil omen. A leader had appeared among a new people who practiced circumcision, and this leader would challenge him. His senators told him there was nothing to worry about. The only people who circumcised, they said, were the Jews, so he could simply impose harsher rules on them. Before Heraclius could do this, Dihyah al-Kalbi arrived at his court with a letter from the Prophet ﷺ. Heraclius had him examined, and he was found to be circumcised. This made Heraclius deeply concerned, and he wrote to a friend about the matter, most likely John IV. Later, Heraclius gathered his senators and asked what they would think if he accepted the faith of Muhammad ﷺ. They reacted with fury and said he would never remain their emperor. So Heraclius told them he had only been testing their faith, and that he would never leave Christianity. He died upon his faith some years later, in the middle of a coup.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 71: "the second story most likely takes place after the Tanukhi incident."