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Muhammad's Visit to Ta'if
More than ten years had passed since Muhammad, may
God bless him and his Ahlul-Bait, had first begun to preach Islam. His success in these
ten years had been rather modest, limited as it was to the conversion of fewer than 170
men and women in Makkah. But after the death of his wife, Khadija, and his uncle, Abu
Talib, it appeared that the Quraysh would wrest even that limited success from his hands.
Makkah had proved inhospitable to Islam and it occurred to the Prophet that he ought,
perhaps to try to preach the new faith in some other city. The nearest city was
Ta’if, 70 miles in the south-east of Makkah, and he went there in late 619. Zayd bin
Haritha went with him. In Ta’if, Muhammad, the Messenger of God,
called on the three chiefs of the local tribes, and invited them to abandon their gross
idolatry, to acknowledge the Oneness of God, to repudiate man-made distinctions of high
and low, and to believe in the equality and brotherhood of all men. The chiefs of Ta’if were a conceited and
arrogant crew, and they did not want even to listen to Muhammad. They greeted him with
mockery and ridicule and set upon him the idlers and the louts of the city. They pelted
him and Zayd with clods and rocks. Wounded and covered with blood, Muhammad staggered out
of Ta’if. Once he was outside the city walls, he almost collapsed but a certain
gardener took him into his hut, dressed his wounds, and let him rest and recuperate until
he felt strong enough to resume his journey across the rough terrain between Ta’if
and Makkah. But when Muhammad arrived in the environs of Makkah,
he sensed that he could not reenter his native city now that his uncle, Abu Talib, was not
there to protect him. Pagan hostility toward him had reached the flash point. He realized
that if he entered Makkah, he would be killed Muhammad could not enter his hometown, and there was
no other place to go to. What was he to do? In this extremity, Muhammad sent word to three
nobles in the city asking each of them to take him under his protection. Two of them
refused but the third one – the gallant Mutim ibn Adiy – responded to his signal
of distress. It was the same Mutim who had, earlier, flouted the chiefs of Quraysh by
tearing into pieces their covenant to boycott the Banu Hashim, and had brought the two
clans of Banu Hashim and Banu al-Muttalib from the Sh’ib Abu Talib back into the
city. Mutim ordered his sons, nephews and other young men
of his clan to put on their battle-dress. He then marched, in full panoply of war, at
their head, out of the city. He brought Muhammad Mustafa with him, first into the
precincts of the Kaaba where the latter made the customary seven circuits, and then
escorted him to his home. Abd-al-Rahman ‘Azzam None of the Makkan chieftains from whom Muhammad
requested protection for safe entry into the city would extend him help; but a
good-hearted pagan chief, al-Mut’im ibn-‘Adi, took him under his protection and
brought him home. Thus did Muhammad re-enter Makkah - guarded by a polytheist! (The
Eternal Message of Muhammad, published by the New English Library, London, 1964) Sir John Glubb In Taif the Prophet was stoned and chased. Afraid to
return to Mecca now that he no longer enjoyed the protection of Abu Talib, he sent a
message to several leading idolaters, asking their protection. Two refused but eventually
Mutim ibn Adi, chief of the Nofal clan of Quraysh, agreed to protect him. Next morning,
he, his sons and nephews went fully armed to the public square of the Kaaba, and announced
that Mohammed was under their protection. The protection of Mutim ibn Adi enabled the
Apostle to return to Mecca. (The Life and Times of Mohammed, New York, 1970) The application of Muhammad Mustafa, the Apostle of
God, upon his return from Ta’if, to Mutim ibn Adiy, a non-Muslim, seeking his
protection, raises once again, a most uncomfortable question, in a most pointed manner, on
the attitude and conduct of the Muslims. Why didn’t the Apostle ask any of them to
take him under his protection even though some of them were said to have been rich and
influential, and some others were touted to have been the terror of the pagans? Why is it
that the Apostle sought the protection of a non-Muslim but didn’t condescend even to
inform the Muslims that he wanted to reenter Makkah and was in need of protection? Or another question! Why didn’t the Muslims
themselves go to the city gate and escort their Prophet to his home? Here they had a
splendid opportunity to demonstrate to him that they were worthy of his trust even if he
had considered them unworthy. But they missed the opportunity. They did not do anything
that would show that they had any anxiety for his personal safety. Pagan Arabia, however, was not devoid of its share
of chivalry and heroism. These qualities were personified in Mutim ibn Adiy, Abul Bukhtari
and a few others. They were the knights of Arabia, and it was their chivalry that was to
make their country famous in later centuries. Pagan Arabia never produced nobler figures
than these. Even Muslims ought to acknowledge their debt of gratitude to them. After all
it were they who dared the Quraysh in some of the most critical moments of the life of the
Prophet of Islam. In doing so, they were inspired only by their own ideals of chivalry.
They considered it their duty to defend the defenseless. The failure at Ta’if was utterly heart-breaking
for the Prophet, and he knew that but for the heroic intervention of Mutim ibn Adiy, he
might not have been able to enter Makkah at all. To a casual observer it might appear that
the Prophet had reached the limits of human endurance and patience. The progress of Islam
had come to a standstill, and the outlook for the future could not look bleaker. But did Muhammad give way to despair in the face of
persistent failures and in the face of violent confrontations with the polytheists? It
would only be natural if he did. But he did not. He never despaired of God’s
boundless mercy. He knew that he was doing God’s work, and he had no doubt at all
that He would lead him out of the wilderness of hopelessness and helplessness to the
destination of success and felicity. It was in one of the darkest and most dismal moments
in his life that Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was elevated by God to the highest
heavens, perhaps in recognition of his refusal to accept defeat and failure in the line of
duty. God honored His Messenger with Isra’ and Me’raj. Isra’ is his
nocturnal journey from "the Sacred Mosque" to "the Distant Mosque"
(Masjid el-Aqsa); and Me’raj is his ascension to the Heaven. Isra’ and
Me’raj foreshadowed the great and the historic events that already loomed over the
horizons, though at the moment there was no way to perceive them. The mystic meaning of Me’raj refers to the
constant struggle of the individual soul against evil. It has its setbacks and failures.
But if it is true to itself, and is true to Faith in God, He will give it victory against
evil. The story of Me’raj, therefore, is a fitting
prelude to the journey of the human soul through life. The first step on this journey is
to be taken through moral conduct – a sense of personal responsibility for the
welfare of fellow human beings, service to God through service to His creation, and an
awareness of His presence with us at all times. Isra’ is referred to in the first verse of the
17th chapter of Al-Qur’an al-Majid as follows: Glory to God who did take His slave for a journey by
night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque whose precincts We did bless, in order
that We might show him some of Our signs: for He is One who heareth and seeth all things. Isra’ and Me’raj took place on the night
of the 27th of Rajab (the seventh month of the Islamic calendar) of the twelfth
year of the Proclamation, i.e., one year before the Migration of the Prophet from Makkah
to Medina.
