our gods the following day.”5
Had Muhammad been after any material gain, or had he been a politician or a party leader, he would have jumped at this offer. The Quraysh were not making a simple offer of recognition of the rights and aspirations of their opponents, they were offering full partnership in the government of Makkah, and perhaps Arabia as a whole. One can see in this offer something similar to a grand coalition between two major parties in the political arena in modern times. But the Prophet was an advocate of the truth. He could not simply accept half the truth and sacrifice the other half. Such a sacrifice meant acceptance of half the falsehood. That was not something which could be done by a Prophet, let alone Muhammad, the last of God’s messengers to mankind. He was commanded to reply to this offer in the following terms, set out in the Qur’ān: “Say: Disbelievers, I do not worship what you worship, nor do you worship what I worship. I shall never worship what you worship, neither will you worship what I worship. You have your own religion and I have mine.” (109: 1-6) Thus this round of negotiations ended like previous ones with the Prophet maintaining his ground, stating that he wanted nothing except a chance to convey his message to people, so that they might accept it if they so wished.
The strained relations between the Prophet and his people continued as he went about fulfilling his task, calling on people to abandon idolatrous beliefs and practices and to worship God alone. There were new converts, but no major breakthrough was to be expected with the sort of determined opposition shown by the Quraysh. However, the hopes of arriving at some sort of accommodation was never far from the minds of at least some of the chiefs. One day, a large group of them met after sunset at the Kaʿbah: famous people like ʿUtbah and Shaybah, the two sons of Rabīʿah, Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb, al-Naḍr ibn al-Ḥārith, Abū al-Bakhtarī ibn Hishām, al-Aswad ibn al-Muṭṭalib, Zimʿah ibn al-Aswad, al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah, Abū Jahl ibn Hishām, ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Umayyah, al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wā’il, Umayyah ibn Khalaf and Nabīh and Munbbih, the two sons of al-Ḥajjāj. Inevitably, their discussion drifted to the problem presented by the message preached by the Prophet. Some of them felt that since so many of the chiefs of Makkah were present, an attempt to achieve a compromise with Muhammad could be fruitful. They sent a messenger to tell Muhammad that the leaders of his people wished to speak to him. He came quickly, hoping that they might have started to realize the truthfulness of Islam.
Absurdity Knows No Limits
Nothing would have given him greater pleasure, since he loved his people and cared for their well-being. As he listened to their spokesman, however, he realized that he was in for another futile discussion. The spokesman started with an appraisal of the situation in Makkah and a repetition of an old offer:
No man in the history of the Arab nation has ever caused his community a problem like the one you have caused: you have insulted our forefathers, criticized our beliefs, reviled our gods, ridiculed our sages and caused division within our community. Indeed, you have been the cause of every bad thing in the relationship between you and us. Nevertheless, we have the following offer to make to you: if you have started this matter of yours in order to become rich, we will pay you from our own money until you are the wealthiest among us. If it is honour that you are seeking, we are prepared to make you our leader and if you seek a kingdom, we will make you our king. On the other hand, if what you experience is some sort of evil spirit which you cannot control, we will seek medical treatment for you and will pay for that whatever is required of us until you have been cured or until we have done everything we can.6
One may observe here that these offers were more of a test than a realistic or practical offer. The chiefs of Makkah were simply hoping for the slightest indication from Muhammad that he was after some material gain. That would have given them all the justification they needed to resort to the most violent means in order to suppress his call. He, however, was clear about his priorities and objectives. He said to them:
I am not after your money, and I do not seek a position or a crown. God has made me His messenger and revealed to me a book and instructed me to give you a message of good tidings and a warning. I have conveyed God’s message to you as best as I could and I have given you good counsel. If you accept it from me, it will be good for you in this life and in the life to come. If you turn it down, I will continue to preach it until God settles the issue between us.7
Perhaps that should have been the end of the matter, since it was apparent that no change of attitude was possible. But the Quraysh had not brought all its chiefs, hard-liners and moderates alike, just to reiterate old attitudes. Therefore, the elders proceeded to confront Muhammad with impossible demands, making their realization a proof of the truthfulness of his message. How ill-advised and short-sighted! Their spokesman put their demands in the following terms:
You know that our country is so hard to live in: water is scarce and we are very poor. Pray your Lord Who sent you to us, then, and ask Him to move away these mountains surrounding us and make our land an open plain with rivers similar to those in Syria and Iraq flowing through it. Ask Him also to raise for us a few of our forefathers who should include Quṣayy ibn Kilāb,8 who was a man of his word, so that we may ask them about what you say and whether it is true or false. If you do that and if they testify for you, we will recognize your high position with God and will believe that you are His messenger.9
The line of argument, then, had nothing to do with the subject matter of the conflict between the Quraysh and the Prophet. They said nothing about the oneness of God, the basic principle the Prophet advocated. They did not defend their idols either. They simply wanted mountains to be moved and rivers to flow. Such are the demands of the weak who cannot address the main issue. It is worth commenting here about the request they made that Muhammad should resurrect some of their forefathers, including Quṣayy ibn Kilāb, the one they described as ‘a man of his word’. None of them ever met Quṣayy, because he died long before their time. They asked for him specifically because he had earned the reputation of being truthful. Little did they reflect that they had known Muhammad himself for close on 50 years and they had never accused him of telling even the smallest of lies. They knew from their personal experience that he never told a lie. If they could not believe the man whom they knew to tell the truth would they have believed Quṣayy, about whom they had heard from their fathers and grandfathers that he was a man of his word? What if Quṣayy told them what they did not want to hear: that Muhammad was telling the truth? Would they not have turned against him in the same way as they turned against Muhammad when he told them that he was God’s messenger?
The Prophet paid no attention to their demands, but simply said to them: “This is not what I was sent to you for. I have conveyed to you the message with which God has entrusted me. If you accept it, you benefit yourselves here and in the life to come. If you deny it, I will await God’s judgement between us.”10
Apparently, the Quraysh chiefs had planned in advance what line they would follow in their discussions with the Prophet and they were determined not to deviate from this predetermined line. They continued to demand acts of a miraculous nature, challenging the Prophet to prove his superiority: “Since you decline that, why do you not get something for yourself? Ask your Lord to send you an angel to endorse what you say and argue your case with us. Ask Him further to give you a palace and a garden and a great amount of gold and silver so that you do not need to work for your living. We will then realize that you are favoured by God, and we would know that your claim to be His messenger is true.”11
In this request, the Quraysh chiefs betrayed their naïvety and ignorance. They knew Muhammad to be a man of great integrity. Before he preached his message, they always expressed their admiration for his good manners and his moral values. All that was heightened after he received his message, but all these qualities were not equal in their view to material wealth, such as a palace, a garden, and an amount of gold and silver. This, however, did not deter the Prophet from making the proper answer: “I would not ask Him anything of the sort. I am simply sent to deliver good tidings and a warning. If you accept, you benefit yourselves. If you refuse, I will await God’s judgement.”
All these demands were made by way of trying to exact a price before the Quraysh chiefs changed their view of the message of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Such attempts to