Tayy

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.

After his conversion, Adi ibn Hatim RA visited the Prophet ﷺ several times. On one of these visits he asked about his late father, Hatim al-Ta'i, who was famed among the Arabs for his generosity but had died outside Islam. Adi said that his father used to be good to his relatives and generous to his people, and asked whether he would be rewarded for it. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "Your father desired something and he got what he desired."