When he saw him with his kinsfolk, he went up to him with his bow in his hand. As he stood over Abū Jahl’s head, he struck him with the bow with all his might, causing a long cut in his forehead. He then said: “Do you abuse him when I follow his religion? I say the same as he says. Try to stop me if you can.” As Abū Jahl’s wound started to bleed, his comrades tried to avenge him. He, however, realized that the situation could deteriorate, so he told them, “Leave Abū ʿImārah [Ḥamzah] alone. I have indeed abused his nephew badly.”5
This incident is laden with tribal overtones. Ḥamzah’s fury and retaliation were motivated by tribal loyalties. Similarly, Abū Jahl’s conciliatory remark after he was punished by Ḥamzah aimed to avoid any tribal clash over the matter. Had Ḥamzah been overcome by the sheer number of his opponents, his tribe would have had to avenge his humiliation. Matters could have got out of hand. Ḥamzah’s declaration that he was a follower of Muhammad was made in a moment of great anger, so it might have had no real foundation and he might still be persuaded to forget the matter - or so Abū Jahl might have thought.
On this last point he was totally mistaken. Ḥamzah might have said what he did on the spur of the moment and without realizing its implications; however, he went to his nephew and learnt from him about Islam. As he listened, a feeling of reassurance grew stronger and stronger within him. He had no regrets. His decision gave the Prophet and the Muslims a feeling of strength, because he was one of the most courageous fighters in Arabia. The Quraysh realized that Ḥamzah was a significant recruit to Islam. It was not simply that the number of Muslims increased by one, but that now the community of Muslims had within its ranks a man of immense power who commanded great respect and imparted much confidence to them. To the last day of his life Ḥamzah continued to be one of the main stalwarts of the new call to Islam.
A Hostile Conference
People have continued to come to Makkah for pilgrimage ever since the Prophets Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaʿbah. God has ensured that successive generations have continued to revere ‘the House’ as it was generally called by the Arabs, and to travel to it to offer their devotion to the Creator. It was Abraham who called upon people, in fulfilment of God’s instructions, to visit the Kaʿbah for pilgrimage. At the time when the Prophet Muhammad started preaching the message of Islam in Makkah, pilgrimage was well established in the traditions of the city. People from all over Arabia came to Makkah at a specific time every year to do their pilgrimage rituals. This, of course, enhanced the position of the Quraysh, who resided in Makkah as the leading tribe in Arabia. One should add here, however, that pre-Islamic pilgrimage included many practices which could not be described as ‘religious’, or even ‘moral’. These were introduced over the years by the Quraysh as the overseers of pilgrimage. Thus, a great institution of worship was distorted and forced out of its religious nature. The fact remained, however, that people from the four corners of Arabia travelled to Makkah every year and stayed there for some time before returning home.
The Quraysh enjoyed the advantages it reaped from pilgrimage and tried to protect them against any threat. Now, however, it was waking up to the fact that the pilgrimage might produce some unwelcome results. This recognition manifested itself in various preventive measures taken by the Quraysh. At a meeting attended by a large number of Makkans and chaired, as it were, by al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah, a well-defined strategy was agreed.
In his opening address, al-Walīd said: “Now that the pilgrimage season is approaching, people will start arriving from all over the place. They must have heard about your friend [meaning the Prophet]. So you had better agree what to say when you are asked about him. We must guard against having too many opinions, particularly if they are mutually contradictory.”
When his audience asked his advice as to what they should say, he preferred to listen to their suggestions first. What concerned al-Walīd most was that the opinion they would come out with should take account of the fact that Muhammad was asking people to listen to the Qur’ān, God’s message, expressed in beautiful language and a powerful style. The description they would attach to Muhammad should also account for his persuasive, eloquent argument.
Descriptions like ‘fortune-teller’, ‘madman’, ‘poet’ and ‘magician’ were proposed. None was considered convincing by al-Walīd, who pointed out weaknesses in each, one after the other. He told his people that what Muhammad said was nothing like what was said by such men. When nobody could suggest anything more plausible, they asked al-Walīd if he had a better suggestion.
He said: “What Muhammad says is certainly beautiful. It is like a date tree with solid roots and rich fruit. Every one of these suggestions you have made is bound to be recognized as false. The least disputable one is to claim that he is a magician who repeats magic words which make a man fall out with his father, mother, wife and clan.” They all approved of al-Walīd’s suggestion and set about preparing their propaganda campaign to make the pilgrims wary of Muhammad and unwilling to meet him.6
This was the first conference organized by the enemies of Islam on how to distort its image and how to turn people away from it before they had a chance to realize that Islam was identical with the truth.
The Quraysh launched its smear campaign against Islam and the Prophet, charging the latter with being a magician who could only bring about discord within people’s families and clans. The hardliners of the Quraysh made a special effort to meet as many pilgrims as possible to explain to them the nature of their problem with Muhammad (peace be upon him) and to warn them against his magic. As pilgrims group themselves on tribal lines, the Quraysh’s efforts often took the form of a semi-official tribal meeting in which a delegation of the Quraysh sought to meet as many as possible of the pilgrims of any one tribe to offer their advice and to warn them against the ‘disastrous’ effects that might arise from any person’s attempt to meet Muhammad. Anyone who met him risked being bewitched, they claimed.
Evil Tactics Backfire
The Quraysh’s campaign was certainly successful. Nobody wanted to learn about Islam in that pilgrimage season. All tribes pledged their support to the attitude of the elders of the Quraysh in trying to contain the problem they faced. The success, however, was short-lived. Those very people who listened to the warnings and thought they were wise to avoid Muhammad and his followers carried the news to their people as they went back. They obviously repeated the Quraysh’s account and views. As news travels, it starts to change. In this instance, the venom of the Quraysh’s false charges was bound to be toned down. In those days, when none of our present-day communications technology was in existence and publicity about anything was limited to word of mouth, the Quraysh did Islam an unintentional service: they allowed the whole of Arabia to learn about the existence of Islam. That was a very important first opportunity for Islam to get beyond the confines of Makkah.
An example of how the Quraysh’s attempts were counterproductive can be provided by the story of Ḍammād, a man from the tribe of Azd Shanū’ah who was well known as a faith healer. Ḍammād heard some idiots in Makkah claiming that Muhammad was a madman. He asked them: “Where is this man? I hope I can cure him by God’s will.” He met the Prophet and told him that he was a faith healer and that God could cause him to be the medium to cure some people. He asked him whether he would like to try. The Prophet said: “Praise be to God, we glorify Him and seek His help. Whoever God guides to the truth will have none to mislead him and whoever God leaves to go astray will have no one to guide. I bear witness that there is no deity other than God, who is the only God and who has no partners.”
Ḍammād said: “By God, I have listened to many fortune-tellers, astrologers, magicians and poets, but I have never heard anything like these words.” He asked the Prophet to repeat what he had said, and expressed his admiration. He then said: “Let us shake hands. I pledge that I am a Muslim.” The Prophet asked him whether he was willing to give his pledge on behalf of his people, and Ḍammād answered in the affirmative. He became an advocate of Islam among his people.7
At one point in this period, there was a very real danger of which Abū Ṭālib was keenly aware. As he watched the efforts of the Quraysh to dissuade other tribes from listening to Muhammad, he felt that the Quraysh might attempt a joint action against the Hāshimite clan to