The Prophet in Makkah

THE PROPHET IN MAKKAH once set off to kill Muhammad. It was only sufficient for Umar to change his mind when someone said to him, “How are you going to live with the Banu Hashim if you kill Muhammad?” The same question faced anyone who sought to harm the Prophet. Persecution in Makkah was mostly directed against enslaved people who had become Muslim—people with no tribe to protect them. According to the Prophet’s close companion, ‘Abdullah ibn Mas’ud, in the early days of Makkah, only seven men came out into the open about being Muslim: the Prophet himself, Abu Bakr, ‘Ammar, Sa’id, Suhayb, Bilal and Miqdad. “As for the Prophet, God protected him through his uncle. As for Abu Bakr, his tribe looked after him. The polytheists would seize the rest, putting coats of armour on them and laying them out in the boiling sun.”122 When the chief of the Banu Hashim, the Prophet’s uncle, Abu Talib, died, an uncouth member of the Quraysh threw dirt at the Prophet, and it stuck to him. When the latter reached home, one of his daughters, Fatimah, brushed the dirt off him. “The Quraysh did nothing nasty to me like this before,” the Prophet commented. It was only after the death of Abu Talib that they committed mean acts of aggression of this nature. As the Prophet’s companion, Abu Hurayrah, has pointed out, “the Quraysh used to treat the Prophet very harshly after the death of his uncle.” “Uncle, how quickly I have felt your loss,” the Prophet lamented.123 The Quraysh even started planning to do away with the Prophet. During this period, Abu Jahl threw an animal’s