2021-08-16 01:09:28
#Part 41
Seeds of faith (41)
Although the vast majority of Makkan pagans rejected the
Prophet , a few people outside Makkah embraced Islam. Some of them are mentioned below:
Suwayd bin Samit:
A poet from Yathrib (the modern day Madinah), Suwayd
came to Makkah to perform pilgrimage. When the Prophet ﷺ invited him to Islam, Suwayd recited some of his own verses to the Prophet ﷺ . In response, the Prophet ﷺ recited some verses of the Qur’an. Declaring, “I have never heard such sublime words,” Suwayd embraced Islam. He was killed in the fighting between the Aus and the Khazraj.
Tufayl bin Amr Dausi:
He was a prominent poet and a chieftain of the Daus tribe
that lived on the outskirts of Yemen. Eleven years after the Prophet ﷺ began his mission, Tufayl visited Makkah only to be warned by the Quraysh about the danger of Muhammad’s bewitching words. Tufayl went to the Ka’bah with cotton stuffed in his ears as a precaution against the Prophet’s preaching. He arrived at the Ka’bah to find the Prophet ﷺ performing his prayers nearby. Overcome by curiosity, Tufayl decided to listen to Muhammad’s recitation. “I am a poet with a trained ear. I can determine if what Muhammad says is true or false. Only if his
words are good shall I accept what he says.” He was amazed by the Prophet’s recitation.
Tufayl then followed the Prophet ﷺ home and asked him to Islam to him. After the Prophet ﷺ did so, Tufayl embraced Islam. He then told the Prophet ﷺ that his people trusted him and would listen to what he had to say, and that he would invite them to Islam. He asked the Prophet ﷺ to give him a sign by which the people would recognise the truth of his words.
The Prophet ﷺ prayed to Allah to give him such a sign, and when Tufayl went back to his people his face was radiant. His people were reluctant to accept Islam, but his father and wife readily became Muslim. By the time he migrated to Madinah, however, seventy or eighty families had accepted Islam, and they accompanied him on the journey to Madinah.
Dhimad Azdi:
A skilled exorcist, he hailed from the Azd Shanwah tribe of Yemen. When he came to Makkah , he heard a rumour that Muhammad was insane. He then approached the Prophet ﷺ and offered to cure him. The Prophet ﷺ responded by saying, “All praise be to Allah. We glorify Him and seek His help. He whom Allah has guided cannot be misled, and he whom Allah has led astray cannot be guided. I bear witnes that there is no god except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His Messenger.”
Dihmad was so impressed with the Prophet’s speech that he
repeated it thrice and said, “I have heard the speeches of sorcerers, soothsayers and poets, but never before have I heard anything like this .” He then asked the Prophet ﷺ to extend his hand so that he could pledge his allegiance to him.
Six Pilgrims from Yathrib: p
These six men from the Khazraj tribe of Yathrib were Asad bin Zurara, Auf bin Harith bin Rifaa (Auf bin Ifra’a), Rafi bin Malik bin Ailan, Qatba bin Amir Hadida, Uqba bin Nabi, and Jabir bin Abdullah bin Riqab. They had come along with other pilgrims from Yathrib to Makkah in the eleventh year of the Prophet’s mission. Yathrib was also home to some Jewish tribes, and occasionally disputes would flare up between the Arabs and Jews. The Jewish minority would intimmidate the Arabs by saying soon a prophet would be sent to lead the Jews into battle. The Arabs, they claimed, would be slaughtered like the people of Aad and Iram. These six pilgrims were sitting together in Mina (just outside Makkah) one night when the Prophet ﷺ passed by. He approached them and asked, “Who are you?”
“We belong to the Khazraj,” they answered. “Allies of the
Jews,” the Prophet ﷺ commented. They replied in the affirmative. “Let us sit together and talk,” the Prophet ﷺ suggested. He spoke to them about Islam, recited some verses of the Qur’an, and invited them to believe in Alllah, the One, the Exalted.
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