add ten more camels. Continue to do so as long as the draw comes out against him. When the draw shows that the camels are accepted, this means that your God has accepted the offering and spared your man. You slaughter those camels as a ransom for him.”
One Life Spared
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and his companions went back to Makkah happy with this solution. When the draw was made, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib stood up praying God to spare his son. Every time the draw was made, it came out against ʿAbdullāh, but they increased the camels ten by ten. When there were a hundred camels, the draw indicated that the camels should be slaughtered. All this time ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was praying and appealing to God to spare his son. When he was told the news, he wanted to make sure. He asked the man who supervised the draw to repeat it three times. Each time it came out with the same result. The camels were brought forward and slaughtered, and left for everybody to come and take what they needed of their meat.8
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was extremely happy when his son’s life was spared. He felt that his youngest son was reborn. Like every loving father, he wanted to do his best to make his son happy. He therefore took immediate steps to arrange ʿAbdullāh’s marriage. He went to Wahb ibn ʿAbd Manāf, chief of the clan of Zuhrah, and proposed that ʿAbdullāh should be married to his daughter, Āminah. The proposal was accepted, and only a few days later the marriage was celebrated.9
It was a happy marriage; both partners soon became very fond of each other. They seemed to have hit the right note from the first day and suited each other extremely well. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib wanted his children to acquire all the practical experience which was available in their society. He advised his youngest son to join the trade caravan which was about to travel to Syria that summer. Although Āminah did not like the idea of being separated from her husband so soon after their marriage, she realized that ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib wanted only what was good for his son. As ʿAbdullāh was about to start on his journey, Āminah broke to him the happy news that she was pregnant. He then set off on his journey with his thoughts firmly centred around his wife, cherishing the hope of a bright and a happy future.
The trip was very hard on the young man. Travelling in the desert in the blazing summer sun did not suit his constitution. Although he was still a young man in his early twenties, full of vigour, he contracted some sort of disease which sapped his strength, yet he had no choice but to travel with the caravan. On the way back, his illness gradually got worse. His condition cried out for proper treatment. When the caravan arrived in Yathrib (later to be known as Madinah) it was obvious to all that ʿAbdullāh needed to be nursed. He therefore stayed behind to be looked after by his cousins of the clan of al-Najjār.
When the caravan arrived in Makkah, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was alarmed not to see his son with them. Informed that he had been left to spend a few days in Yathrib to regain his strength before continuing his journey, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib dispatched his eldest son, al-Ḥārith, to help his brother on the journey home. On arrival in Yathrib, al-Ḥārith was given the sad news that ʿAbdullāh was dead.10
The tragic news was too much for ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib in his extreme old age, and for Āminah, the youthful bride now expecting her fatherless baby. Yet ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib could not but reflect that ʿAbdullāh was spared only for his life to be prolonged by a few months. It seemed that it was his destiny to live only for Āminah’s pregnancy to take place. Little did he know that Āminah’s baby was to be the last Messenger God would send to mankind.
A Campaign to Destroy the Kaʿbah
Meanwhile, a very serious event took place in Arabia that year. It affected all the Arabs and their faith, and remained so vivid in their minds that they used to date other events by reference to it. At that time, the Arabs had no specific calendar to date their events. When something very serious took place in their lives, they referred to it as a date mark.
The various reports on this event which have come to us mention that after the Abyssinians had expelled the Persians from Yemen and established their own rule there, the Abyssinian governor of Yemen, Abrahah, built a superbly luxurious church in this area, giving it the name of the Abyssinian emperor at the time. He did this after he had witnessed the love and enthusiasm of Yemeni Arabs – the same as those felt all over the Arab land – for the Kaʿbah, the sacred mosque at Makkah. His aim in building it was to make the Arabs forsake their attachment to the mosque of Makkah and turn instead to this new luxurious church.
But the Arabs did not turn away from their sacred House, the Kaʿbah. They believed themselves to be the descendants of Abraham and Ishmael who built the House. For them, this fact was a source of pride in line with their tradition of taking pride in their forefathers. The whole idea of directing their affection and respect towards this new church built by an ordinary army commander who followed a religion which they considered inferior to theirs was totally absurd. Abrahah’s whole enterprise was a subject of ridicule among them. One of them went so far as to use the most splendid spot in that church for doing his toilet, to emphasize the contempt with which the Arabs viewed Abrahah’s idea.11
When Abrahah was informed of this, he decided to pull down the Kaʿbah in order to achieve his objective of turning the Arabs away from it. He therefore marched at the head of a great army, equipped with elephants. At the front was a very big elephant which enjoyed special fame among Abrahah’s men. The news of Abrahah’s march and his objective spread throughout the Arab land and among the Arabs very strong feelings arose against the destruction of their sacred House. A nobleman of the royal family of Yemen, Dhū Nafar, tried to stop the Abyssinian governor, calling on his people and other Arabs to fight Abrahah and defend the Kaʿbah. Some Arab tribes joined him in a battle against Abrahah which Dhū Nafar lost, and he was then taken prisoner. Later, as Abrahah travelled on, he was attacked by Nufayl ibn Ḥabīb al-Khathʿamī, who had mobilized two Arab tribes as well as troops from other supporting tribes, but Abrahah won the battle again and captured Nufayl. Nufayl then agreed to act as guide to show Abrahah his way in the Arab land. When the Abyssinian governor approached Ṭā’if, a number of its leaders went to him to say that the House he wanted to pull down was in Makkah, not at Ṭā’if. They did this so that he would not destroy the house they had built for their idol, al-Lāt. They also provided him with a guide to show him the way to the Kaʿbah.12
On arrival at al-Mughammas (a valley midway between Ṭā’if and Makkah) Abrahah dispatched one of his commanders to Makkah where he looted some possessions from the Quraysh and other Arabs, including 200 camels which belonged to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. The Quraysh, Kinānah, Hudhayl and neighbouring Arab tribes gathered to fight Abrahah, but realized that they stood no chance of winning, so they did not proceed. Then Abrahah sent a messenger to Makkah to meet its chief and convey to him that the governor of Yemen had come not to fight the Makkans but simply to pull down the House; if they left him to accomplish his purpose, he would be pleased not to cause any bloodshed. Abrahah also ordered his messenger to bring with him the Makkan chief if the latter did not propose to fight. When the messenger communicated his master’s message to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the latter said: “By God, we do not want to fight him, and we have no power to resist him. This is God’s sacred House, built by His chosen friend, Abraham. If He protects it against him, it is because the House is His, and if He leaves it to him to destroy, we cannot defend it.” ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib then went with the messenger to Abrahah.
Despite his very advanced age, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was a most handsome, charming and attractive person. When Abrahah saw him he felt much respect for him. He felt that ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was too noble to sit beneath his royal couch, but at the same time Abrahah did not wish to be seen by the Abyssinians sitting with him on his couch, so he came down and sat with ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib on the carpet. Then Abrahah ordered his interpreter to ask his guest what he wanted. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib said he wanted to request ‘the king’ to give him back his two hundred camels which had been looted by his commander. Abrahah ordered his interpreter to tell ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib on his behalf: “I admired you when I first saw you, but when I spoke to you I was disappointed. Do you come to talk to me about two hundred looted camels and forget about the House which is the embodiment of the religion in which you believe, as did your forefathers,