The Year of Delegations

Hatim al-Ta'i was famous among the Arabs for his generosity. His son Adi became chief of the Tayy tribe after him. Adi was a Christian, with friends at the Roman court, but he had none of his father's courage. When he heard that the Muslims were conquering one tribe after another, he kept camels ready. When his lookouts told him that Ali was coming, he abandoned his people. He fled north with his wife, his children and his wealth, to a place near Roman territory. Ali's expedition broke the idol of Tayy and brought back prisoners. Among them was a woman who demanded to see the Prophet ﷺ. She told him she was the daughter of Hatim. She asked him to be generous to her, as Allah would be generous to him. He freed her, gave her a camel and supplies, and let her go wherever she liked. She found her brother in the north and scolded him for running away. She told him to go down to Muhammad ﷺ. If he was a prophet, she said, Adi should follow him. If he was a king, Adi should win his favour. The fact that she allowed for the first possibility shows what she already thought. Adi told the story himself, to a student in Kufa, where he died at the age of a hundred and twenty. He said that no one on earth had been more hateful to him than the Prophet ﷺ. But he decided that if the man spoke the truth, he would hear it from him, and if not, it would do him no harm. He walked into Madinah at the end of the eighth year or the start of the ninth. He came without protection and without fear, because no one would harm the son of Hatim. Men who recognised him shouted his name and took him to the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ told him to accept Islam and he would be safe. Adi replied that he already had a religion, and a better one than the pagans had. The Prophet ﷺ repeated the invitation, and Adi refused again. The Prophet ﷺ repeated it once more. Then the Prophet ﷺ said that he knew Adi's religion better than Adi did himself. He asked Adi whether he was not the chief of his people, and Adi said he was. He asked whether Adi did not take a quarter of their income, and Adi said he did. Then he asked whether Adi did not know that his own religion forbade it. Adi said he felt ashamed, and he knew then that this man was a prophet. The Prophet ﷺ took him by the hand and walked him to his house. On the way, an old woman with a small child stopped the Prophet ﷺ to ask about something she needed. He stood and talked with her until it was settled, while the chief of Tayy waited beside him. Adi said to himself that this was not a king. In the house there was a single worn mat. The Prophet ﷺ spread it out and told Adi to sit on it. Adi protested that this would leave nothing for his host. The Prophet ﷺ insisted, and sat on the ground himself. Then he asked Adi whether he knew of any god but Allah. Adi said no. He asked whether Adi knew of anyone mightier than Allah. Again Adi said no. The Prophet ﷺ told him that the Jews had earned Allah's anger, and the Christians had gone astray. Then the Prophet ﷺ named the thing that was holding Adi back. Perhaps, he said, it was the state of the people around him, their poverty and their weakness. Adi was a man who lived well, among a great civilisation, and this was how they looked to him. The Prophet ﷺ asked whether he had heard of al-Hirah. He told him that soon a woman would ride from al-Hirah to circle the Ka'bah alone, fearing nothing but Allah. He told him that the treasures of Kisra ibn Hormuz would be divided among the Muslims. Adi asked in surprise whether he really meant Kisra ibn Hormuz, and the Prophet ﷺ said yes, Kisra ibn Hormuz. And he said that a day would come when a man would walk the streets of Madinah with charity in his hand, and find no one to take it. Adi became a Muslim there in the house. In later life, when Adi told the story, he would say that he had seen two of the three things with his own eyes. The woman had ridden in safety. And he himself had been among those who opened the treasury of Kisra. As for the third, he knew it would come. It came in the reign of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz. Later, Adi asked the Prophet ﷺ about his father, who had been so generous to relatives and strangers alike. He asked whether his father would be rewarded for it. He was told that his father had wanted something, and had got what he wanted.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 84: "this is at the end of the 8th year, some say the beginning of the 9th."

The Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr were the tribe of Halimah, who had cared for the Prophet ﷺ in the desert when he was an infant. They were a branch of the Hawazin, who had fought the Muslims at Hunayn. Unlike the Thaqif, who lived in the town of Ta'if, the Hawazin were Bedouins, and their manners were rough. In the ninth year of the Hijrah, shortly before the Thaqif came, the tribe sent one of its elders to Madinah to negotiate a peace treaty. He was not yet a Muslim. His name was Dimam ibn Tha'laba. He was a hairy, unkempt man who wore his hair in two ponytails, as Bedouins often did. He rode his camel right up to the door of the mosque, sat it down there, and walked in. "Where is the son of Abdul Muttalib?" he asked. He could not read or write, but he knew the Prophet ﷺ's famous grandfather, and for a man like him lineage mattered a great deal. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I am the son of Abdul Muttalib." Dimam asked whether he was Muhammad ﷺ, and he said that he was. Dimam said, "I will ask you, and I will be very tough with you, but don't get angry with me." The Prophet ﷺ said, "Go ahead." Dimam said, "Your envoy came to us, and he told us that Allah has sent you." The Prophet ﷺ said, "He has spoken the truth." Dimam then asked who created the heavens, who created the earth, who created the mountains, and who put everything in its place. Each time, the Prophet ﷺ answered, "Allah." Then Dimam asked him, by the One who had created all of these, to swear whether Allah had sent him to them. The Prophet ﷺ said, "I swear by Allah, I have been sent by Allah." Dimam went on in the same way. He said the envoy had told them they must pray five times a day, and asked, by the One who had sent him, whether Allah had commanded this. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Yes." Dimam asked the same about zakat, fasting and Hajj. The mention of Hajj fits the ninth year of the Hijrah. According to some narrations, Dimam is the man in a well-known hadith who asked whether he had to do anything more than these duties. The Prophet ﷺ told him, "No, unless you want to." The man then swore by the One who had sent the Prophet ﷺ with the truth that he would do exactly this, adding nothing and leaving nothing out. As he left, the Prophet ﷺ remarked to the Companions, "If he is true, then he shall enter Jannah." Dimam went home and preached to his people. Ibn Ishaq reports that he was so respected that the whole tribe accepted Islam on the day he returned. That same day he destroyed the idol they used to worship. It is said that no delegate was ever a greater blessing to his people than Dimam.

Placed here because: Ep. 94: "this took place before one of the most important delegations which was that of Thaqif."

When the siege of Ta'if was lifted, the Prophet ﷺ told his Companions to leave the Thaqif alone. He said, "Let them be, they will come to us." Less than a year later, they came. By then they were the last pagan tribe in the Hejaz. What brought them was fear as much as faith. Urwah ibn Mas'ud had been the greatest of their chiefs. The Qur'an pairs him with al-Walid ibn al-Mughira as one of the two great men of the two cities. Urwah had embraced Islam on the road home from the siege, and gone back to call his people to it. But they shot him from the dark as he gave the adhan from his roof. His blood was on their hands, and they knew what that meant. Ibn Ishaq records the long argument that followed. No chief would go to Madinah alone to answer for the killing. In the end they agreed that all six or seven of them would go together, with their followers. They set out in Ramadan of the ninth year. Their kinsman al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba met them outside the city. He ran towards the mosque to tell the Prophet ﷺ. On the way, Abu Bakr stopped him. He begged Mughira, by Allah, to let him be the one to carry the good news. Every Companion wanted to be the man who made the Prophet ﷺ happy. Mughira went back to the delegation. He taught them how to greet the Prophet ﷺ and what to call him. They ignored all of it. They greeted him in the way of the days of ignorance before Islam, and called him by his name. There was no faith in them yet. The Prophet ﷺ overlooked every discourtesy. He had a tent put up for them inside the mosque, and treated them as honoured guests. By Arab custom, the two leaders would not meet until talks had been held through a go-between. Theirs was Khalid ibn Sa'id ibn al-As, a distant cousin of the Prophet ﷺ. The delegates were so afraid because of what they had done that they would not touch the food until Khalid had eaten first. Through him the bargaining went on for ten days. They asked whether they could have a treaty at all. They were told they could, if they became Muslims. They had heard that riba, the taking of interest, was forbidden, and all their wealth came from riba. The answer was that they would keep their principal. They asked whether they could keep zina, sex outside marriage, since they were merchants and often away from home. They were told that Allah had forbidden it. They asked whether they could at least keep wine. Ta'if was a city of vineyards and cold nights. Again they were told that Allah had forbidden it. The delegates talked it over among themselves. None of them could go home and tell Ta'if that riba, zina and wine were all gone. But if they went home without an agreement and another army came, they would be finished within a month. Then one of them pointed out that the people around this man had given up all three. If they could do it, he said, so could the Thaqif. Next came the question of al-Lat, their idol. It was the second greatest idol in Arabia after Hubal, and it was to be destroyed. They asked for it to be left for three years. Then they asked for two years, then one, and then fewer and fewer months. Every time the answer was no. Then they said they could not be the ones to destroy it. The Prophet ﷺ said, "You don't have to. We will take charge of that." Then they turned to the prayer. They asked to be excused from bowing, because of the cold. The Prophet ﷺ said, "There is no good in any religion that has no salah in it." They asked to be excused from wudu, because Ta'if gets very cold, and again the answer was no. Finally they asked to be excused from zakat and jihad. This time the Prophet ﷺ said, "Okay, you are forgiven from zakat and jihad." But a few days later, when they were leaving, he said, "They shall give zakat and they shall go for jihad." In time they did both. Scholars differ on what this means. Some say the Prophet ﷺ knew that faith would enter their hearts and lead them to both, so this was special to him. Others take it as a precedent for a Muslim leader to accept imperfect conditions from new Muslims for a time. Around the tenth day they became Muslims. They fasted the last five days of Ramadan with him. They were very anxious to get it right. When Bilal brought them their suhur, they said the sun had already risen. He told them the Prophet ﷺ was still eating. When he brought their iftar, they said the sun had not yet set. He told them he had come only after the Prophet ﷺ had broken his own fast. The youngest of them was Uthman ibn Abi al-As. He had believed before the rest of them. He spent the fortnight away from the elders' tent, learning the Qur'an from the Prophet ﷺ and the religion from Abu Bakr. When they left, Abu Bakr proposed him as their leader, and the Prophet ﷺ appointed him. They went home and told Ta'if that it must accept Islam. Mughira and Abu Sufyan were sent to break al-Lat. At the first blow, Mughira pretended to drop dead, to show the people how foolish they were. A mosque was built where the idol had stood. Wahshi, the man who had killed Hamzah, had fled to Ta'if before the conquest of Makkah. He became a Muslim at about the same time.

Placed here because: Ep. 95: "this took place in Ramadan of the 9th year of the Hijrah."

During their negotiations with the Prophet ﷺ, the Thaqif accepted that their idol al-Lat would be destroyed, but asked not to be the ones to do it. Al-Lat was the second most prestigious idol of the pagan Arabs after Hubal. The Prophet ﷺ sent al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba RA, who was their own kinsman, together with Abu Sufyan ibn Harb RA, to destroy it. The whole tribe gathered anxiously, with the women crying and the elders wailing. Mughira first played a prank on them. He struck the idol, cried out, and fell on his face as if al-Lat had struck him down. The crowd rejoiced, thinking their idol had defended itself. Then Mughira jumped up and mocked them for believing it. The idol's caretaker warned that the earth would swallow anyone who reached its base. Mughira carried on and demolished al-Lat completely, down to the ground. The Prophet ﷺ then sent word to Uthman ibn Abi al-As RA to build a mosque where the idol had stood. The treasures kept in its sanctuary were taken to the Bayt al-Mal, the public treasury, and the Prophet ﷺ distributed them to the poor and needy.

Placed here because: Shortly after the delegation went home; Mughira and Abu Sufyan were sent to break it.

Musaylimah al-Kadhdhab, "Musaylimah the Liar", was an elderly and highly respected leader of Banu Hanifa in al-Yamamah. He watched his tribe split as Islam spread. The nobleman Thumamah ibn Uthal RA and his followers became Muslims, while others held to the old ways. Musaylimah told his people that he would follow the Prophet ﷺ on two conditions. The Prophet ﷺ must give him power after his death, and must share prophethood with him "like Musa shared with his brother Harun." He then travelled to Madinah to negotiate. His followers brought him into the mosque shielded with fine cloth, as if he were a king. He put his conditions to the Prophet ﷺ directly. The Prophet ﷺ was holding a tree branch, and he said, "Wallahi, if you asked me for this stick, I wouldn't even give this to you." After returning home, Musaylimah wrote to the Prophet ﷺ, calling himself a Messenger of Allah alongside him. He claimed that the Quraysh had half of "the matter" and he had the other half. The Prophet ﷺ asked the two men who delivered the letter what they said about Musaylimah, and they said they agreed with the letter. The Prophet ﷺ told them that, were it not that envoys are never harmed, he would have had them executed, because their claim was open disbelief. Musaylimah also composed imitations of the Qur'an. One was a reworking of Surah al-Kawthar. Another, which he called Surah al-Difda', "the Chapter of the Frog", was addressed to a frog. When he recited his own version of Surah al-Fil to a passing Arab who was not even a Muslim, the man told him, "Wallahi, you know that I know that you are a liar."

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 96 tells it first among its delegations; no month is given.

The Prophet ﷺ sent a letter to Musaylimah al-Kadhdhab of Banu Hanifa calling him to Islam. Musaylimah replied that he would only accept if he were given a share of power.

Placed here because: Ep. 96: "After he returned to his community, he wrote a letter to the Prophet ﷺ."

Najran was a province whose people were almost all Christian, with close ties to the Roman emperor. A few months earlier, the Prophet ﷺ had written to them "in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." He invited them to Islam. If they refused, they could pay the jizya, a yearly tax paid by non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. If they refused both, there would be war. The people of Najran consulted one another. One of them said that a prophet had been foretold among the descendants of Isma'il, and this might be him. Another said that even if he was not a prophet, they should find out how strong he was. Ibn Ishaq says they sent sixty men, at a time when most delegations had between one and ten. Twenty-four of them were nobles, including three bishops and a patriarch. They wanted both to impress the Muslims and to judge the situation for themselves. The Christians of Najran arrived at the mosque at the time of the Asr prayer. They were dressed in a style closer to Rome than to Arabia, and the Companions said they had never seen a delegation like them. When it was time for their own prayer, they asked permission to pray. The Companions wanted to refuse, but the Prophet ﷺ allowed it. The Christians faced east, as Christians of that time did in prayer. This meant they faced one of the mosque's side walls rather than the qibla. The talks lasted perhaps three or four days. On the first day the delegates asked many questions about Isa, Jesus son of Maryam. Finally they asked, "If you agree with us that Isa was born of a virgin, then who is his father?" The Prophet ﷺ said, "I don't have an answer for you now. Let Allah answer you." The next day, Allah revealed the first sixty verses of Surah Ali Imran. One of them says that the example of Isa with Allah is like that of Adam, whom He created from dust and then said to him "Be," and he was (3:59). The delegates also claimed that Ibrahim was a Christian. The surah answered that Ibrahim was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but a hanif who submitted to Allah and was no idolater (3:67). At the end of the second day came the Verse of Mubahala (3:61). In a mubahala, two sides who cannot settle a dispute call down Allah's curse on whichever of them is lying. The verse tells the Prophet ﷺ to say, "Come, let us call our sons and your sons, our women and your women, ourselves and yourselves," and then to pray that Allah's curse falls on the liars. A mubahala is a last resort at the end of an argument, never the way to begin one. The verse names children and women first because seeing a curse fall on loved ones is harder than suffering it oneself. The next morning, the Prophet ﷺ came out ready for the mubahala with his family. With him were his daughter Fatima, her husband Ali, and their sons Hasan and Husayn. Meanwhile the Christians had talked among themselves. They reasoned that if he really was a prophet and they went through with the curse, they would be wiped from the face of the earth. So they declined the mubahala and agreed to pay the jizya instead. The Prophet ﷺ set a reasonable amount of cloth and silver each year, "for as long as Allah wills." The delegates also asked for a judge to settle disputes among themselves, because they had found the Muslims honest. The Prophet ﷺ sent Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah to be their judge for a while. Al-Bayhaqi records what happened on the way home. The younger brother of one of the most senior men said something insulting about the Prophet ﷺ. His older brother, the patriarch, told him not to curse him. When the younger man asked why, the patriarch said it was because he was the prophet foretold in their scripture. The younger man asked why, then, he had not followed him, since everyone else was following the patriarch. The patriarch asked whether he wanted them to give up all the honor, wealth and ties that the Roman emperor had given them. The younger brother was so shocked that he went back to Madinah and became a Muslim. Most of the others simply followed their leaders home.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 96 places it in the Year of Delegations, after the letter to Najran "a few months before"; no month is given.

The tribe of Abd al-Qays sent a second delegation to the Prophet ﷺ in the 9th year of the Hijrah, the Year of Delegations, following up on their first delegation of the 5th year.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 94: the tribe "sent a second delegation in the 9th year, i.e., the Year of Delegations."

The entire tribe of Muzayna, roughly 400 people, came to Madinah in the Year of Delegations to embrace Islam. When they prepared to return home, the Prophet ﷺ instructed Umar ibn al-Khattab RA to provide them food for the journey. Umar had only one bag of dates at home, but obeyed anyway, and found his room filled with dates to the ceiling. All 400 delegates filled their sacks from it, and the pile was reported unchanged when the last of them left.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 94 order; no month is given.

Ten men of Banu Asad ibn Khuzaymah came loudly into the mosque in Madinah and declared that they were Muslims. They pointed out that they had come without anyone being sent to invite them, and had accepted Islam without being fought, unlike other Arabs. They added that they had travelled through the darkness and the cold to get there. Allah then revealed Qur'an 49:17 about them. The verse tells the Prophet ﷺ to say to them that their Islam is not a favor they have done him. Rather, Allah has done them a favor by guiding them to faith.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 94 order; no month is given.

Fatima bint Qays RA, one of the early women emigrants, narrated this event. When her 'iddah, the waiting period after the end of a marriage, was over, she heard the call "Come to the prayer" and went to the Masjid. She prayed in the women's row closest to the men. When the Prophet ﷺ finished the prayer, he went up onto the minbar, smiling, and told everyone to stay where they were. He said he had not called them together for a lecture, but to tell them the story of Tamim al-Dari. Tamim was a Christian who had recently become a Muslim, and his story agreed with what the Prophet ﷺ had been teaching them about the Dajjal, the false messiah. Tamim had sailed with 30 men from the tribes of Lakhm and Judham. The waves tossed them about for a month until they landed on an island. There they met a beast so hairy that they could not tell its front from its back. It called itself al-Jassasah, and it directed them to a monastery. Inside they found a giant man bound in chains. He questioned them about the date palms of Baysan, the Lake of Tabariyyah and the spring of Zughar. He also asked about "the unlettered prophet," and whether the Arabs had submitted to him. The chained man then revealed that he was al-Masih al-Dajjal. He said he would soon be allowed to come out, and that for 40 nights he would spare no town except Makkah and Taybah, another name for Madinah. Angels guard both cities on every route. After telling the story, the Prophet ﷺ struck the minbar with his staff and said three times, "This is Taybah." He then said that the Dajjal is in the east.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 94 order; no month is given.

Wa'il ibn Hujr was a nobleman from Hadhramaut in Yemen. He was of royal blood, since his great-grandfather had been one of the kings of the region. In the 9th year of the Hijrah, before he arrived, the Prophet ﷺ told the Companions, "There shall come to you Wa'il ibn Hujr, one of the ashraf of Yemen. And he is coming wanting to embrace Islam without any pressure being put on him." The ashraf were the noblemen. Wa'il reached Madinah three days later. The Prophet ﷺ honored him as he honored hardly anyone else. He brought Wa'il up onto the minbar beside him, and seated him on his own cloak, an Arab custom for honoring a guest. He also made du'a for Wa'il and his children. Wa'il complained that his family had taken his right to the throne away from him. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "I will give you better than that," meaning that Islam would bring him more than any kingdom. The Prophet ﷺ then made Wa'il governor of a small area of Yemen. He sent the young Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan RA, who was very poor at the time, with him as an escort. Wa'il rode his camel while Muawiyah walked. Muawiyah asked to ride with him, but Wa'il said it was not fitting for someone like him to ride with kings. Muawiyah then asked at least to wear Wa'il's shoes, because the stones were hot. Wa'il refused again and told him to shelter in the shadow of the camel. He was a Muslim, but a brand new one who had not yet left his old manners behind.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 95 order; no month is given.

The tribe of Azd, one of the large tribes of Yemen, came to Madinah and accepted Islam. The Prophet ﷺ put a Companion, Surad ibn Abdillah al-Azdi RA, in charge of them. He gave Surad the task of subduing a neighboring tribe that was still pagan, the people of Jurash. Meanwhile, Jurash sent two envoys to Madinah to sound out the Prophet ﷺ and see whether he would accept a truce. While they were on the road, the Prophet ﷺ had already ordered Azd to attack. On the very day the envoys reached Madinah, Surad besieged Jurash and began to overcome them. The envoys knew nothing of this. The Prophet ﷺ asked the two men which tribe they were from, and they said Jurash. He said, "Verily, Allah's camel is being sacrificed at Jurash as we speak." He meant that the slaughter was happening at that very moment, but they did not understand. Then Abu Bakr RA, or in another account Uthman ibn Affan RA, explained it to them. He told them that the Prophet ﷺ was informing them of the calamity falling on their people, and that their only hope was to ask him to pray for them. They asked, and the Prophet ﷺ made du'a for the people of Jurash to be guided.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 96 order; no month is given.

Imran ibn Husayn RA narrated this hadith. He was sitting in the mosque when a delegation of Banu Tamim arrived to announce that they had become Muslims. Banu Tamim were Bedouins from Najd, known for being rough and harsh, and most of the Confederate army at the Battle of the Trench had come from that region. The Prophet ﷺ said to them, "I give you good news, O people of Tamim." He meant the good news of Paradise. They misunderstood him and thought he was offering them something of this world, so they said, "You are giving us good news, so give us then the money." Out of good manners, the Prophet ﷺ stayed silent. Then a delegation from Himyar in Yemen arrived and announced that they too had become Muslims. The Prophet ﷺ said, "O people of Himyar, accept the good news since the people of Banu Tamim did not accept it." They replied, "We accept the good news! And we have come all the way from Yemen asking you about the creation, how did Allah create it, and how did it all begin?" The Prophet ﷺ answered, "There was Allah, and there was nothing before Him. And He then created the heavens and the earth while His Throne was on the water." Just then, someone called out to Imran that his camel had run off. He ran after it into the desert, but he neither caught the camel nor heard the rest of the hadith. He later wished he had let the camel go. Imran was the only one to report this hadith. The men of Himyar went back to Yemen and did not pass it on, so the rest of what the Prophet ﷺ said that day has not come down to us.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 96 order; no month is given.

Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Aqil RA is known only through this one hadith. He came to the Prophet ﷺ as part of a delegation that his tribe had forced to go and negotiate with him. He recalled that when they arrived, there was no one in the world they despised more than the man they had been sent to see. But when they left, there was no one in the world more beloved to them. During the visit, one of the young men in the group asked the Prophet ﷺ why he did not ask his Lord for a kingdom like that of Sulayman AS. The Prophet ﷺ laughed and said, "Maybe your companion has been given a kingdom better than the kingdom of Sulayman." Then he said, "Allah has never sent any prophet except that He has given him one request. Some of those prophets asked for something of this world; some asked for punishments against their people; and as for me, Allah has given me a request that I have kept with myself between me and my Lord: It shall be my shafa'a for my ummah on the Day of Judgment." Shafa'a means intercession. He had saved his one request to plead for his followers on the Last Day.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 96 tells it last; no month is given.