The Prophet in Makkah

al-Waqi’ah (The Event): “And have you made denial your means of livelihood.”120 The allusion is to the Quraysh’s notion that they were saving themselves from financial ruin by denying the Prophet Muhammad and the monotheistic religion he taught. Once the Prophet started to preach his message, his person became the subject of general curiosity. According to the historian Abu Ya’la, people who saw him used to ask one another: “Is this him?” He might be travelling amidst a host in a caravan, but people would single him out for mention. Anyone who came to Makkah would, among other things, take back news of the Prophet. “Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, has laid claim to prophethood, and the son of Abu Qahafah has followed him,” they would say. The Quraysh used to call the Prophet “muzammam,” meaning blameworthy, instead of Muhammad, meaning praiseworthy. They used to accuse him of insulting their ancestors. Once, as the Prophet’s biographer, Ibn Hisham, had once related, when the Prophet noticed the litter his fellow Quraysh had put in the street on which he was passing, he said in dismay: “What bad neighbours the Banu ‘Abd al-Manaf are.”121 While the Prophet’s uncle, Abu Talib, was alive, his enemies could not take any action against him, for, according to tribal custom, aggression against the Prophet would have amounted to aggression against his whole tribe—the Banu Hashim. Before he accepted Islam, ‘Umar ibn Khattab