The Prophet in Makkah

no one was prepared to shoulder this responsibility in the case of the Prophet. When a group from one tribe felt inclined to take pity upon the Prophet, one of their elders rebuked them: “His tribe has expelled him, and you intend to grant him protection. What do you want to do? Wage war upon the whole of the Arab nation?”132 He knew that to offer refuge to a person his tribe had disowned, was to declare war against that tribe. The Quraysh expelled him, and the Quraysh were masters of the entire Arab peninsula. To grant asylum to one expelled by them was to declare war on every Arab tribe— on everyone who looked up to the Quraysh as their leaders and guardians of the Holy Ka’bah. That was why, when the Ansar swore allegiance to the Prophet, Abu’l Haytham ibn al-Tayyihan warned them: “If you take him with you, the whole Arab nation will descend upon you with one accord.”133 Added to this, there was the fact that Arab border tribes had made pacts with neighbouring foreign powers. These tribes feared repercussions if they took a controversial personality like the Prophet. As Ibn Kathir has explained in Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah, the Prophet once went into the tent of the Banu Shayban ibn Tha’labah in Makkah and talked with their elders. They were impressed by the Prophet’s words but finally decided that their position on the border of Persia was too precarious for them to take responsibility for the Prophet. As their spokesman, Hani ibn Qubaisah, put it, they had made pacts with the Persian