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Banu Hashim - Before the Birth of Islam
In the fifth century A.D. a man called Qusay, was
born in the tribe of Quraysh. He won great honor and fame for his tribe by his wisdom. He
rebuilt the Kaaba which was in a state of disrepair, and he ordered the Arabs to build
their houses around it. He also built the "town hall" of Makkah, the first one
in Arabia. The leaders of the various clans gathered in this hall to ponder upon their
social, commercial, cultural and political problems. Qusay formulated laws for the supply
of food and water to the pilgrims who came to Makkah, and he persuaded the Arabs to pay a
tax for their support. Edward Gibbon Qusay, born about A.D. 400, the great-grandfather of
Abdul-Muttalib, and consequently fifth in the ascending line from Mohammed, obtained
supreme power at Mecca. (The decline and fall of the Roman Empire) Qusay died in A.D. 480, and his son, Abd Manaf, took
charge of his duties. He too distinguished himself by his ability. He was noted for his
generosity and good judgment. He was succeeded by his son Hashim. It was this Hashim who
gave his name to the clan which became famous in history as Banu Hashim.Hashim was an
extraordinary man. It was he who made the Quraysh merchants and merchant princes. He was
the first man who instituted the two caravan journeys of Quraysh, summer and winter, and
the first to provide thareed (broth) to the Arabs. But for him, the Arabs might have
remained shepherds forever. Enlightened and benevolent leadership and generosity
were only two out of many qualities which Muhammad, the future prophet,
"inherited" from his fore-fathers. Hashim was married to a woman of Yathrib and
from her he had a son – Abdul Muttalib. In due course, Abdul Muttalib was to succeed
his father as the chief of the clan of Hashim. Edward Gibbon The grandfather of Mohammed(Abdul Muttalib), and his
lineal ancestors, appear in foreign and domestic transactions as the princes of their
country; but they reigned, like Percales at Athens, or the Medics at Florence, by the
opinion of their wisdom and integrity; their influence was divided with their patrimony. The tribe of Koreish, by fraud or force (sic), had
acquired the custody of the Kaaba; the sacerdotal office devolved through four lineal
descents to the grandfather of Mohammed; and the family of Hashemites, from whence he
sprang, was the most respectable and sacred in the eyes of their country. Mohammed's
descent from Ismael was a national privilege or fable (sic); but if the first steps of the
pedigree are dark and doubtful (sic), he could produce many generations of pure and
genuine nobility; he sprang from the tribe of Koreish and the family of Hashim, the most
illustrious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of the Kaaba.
(The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) Hashim had a younger brother called Al-Muttalib, the
son of Abd Manaf. For a time, he was chief of the clan, and when he died, his nephew
– Abdul Muttalib – the son of Hashim, succeeded him as the new chief. Abdul
Muttalib exhibited all the qualities which had made the names of his father and
grandfather great and famous. As noted before, the city of Makkah, like the rest
of Arabia, was without a government and without a ruler, but it was dominated by the tribe
of Quraysh. Quraysh was composed of twelve clans, and Banu Hashim was one of them.
Reacting to the depravity of the times, the members of Banu Hashim, were prompted, a
half-century before the birth of Muhammad, to make some tentative efforts to arrest the
moral decline of the Arabs and to improve the social, economic and intellectual climate of
the country. They, therefore, forged the League of the Virtuous. The major aims of the
League were to prevent wars from breaking out and to protect the weak and the defenseless
from their enemies. The Banu Hashim also interested itself in the
economic welfare of the Arabs, and inaugurated a system of trade with neighboring
countries by sending caravans to Syria in summer and to Yemen in winter, as noted before.
These caravans left Makkah loaded with such products as date fruit, harness for horses and
camels, blankets made from wool or camel hair; perfumes and aromatic herbs; spices,
incense, hides and skins of the desert animals, and pedigreed horses. They brought back
with them textiles, olive oil, weapons, coffee, fruits and grain. Both the League of the Virtuous and the caravan
trade were unquestionably great gifts of the Banu Hashim to the Arabs. But their greatest
gift, not only to the Arabs, but to the whole world, was going to be the child to be
called Muhammad, the son of Abdullah ibn Abdul Muttalib and Amina bint Wahab. He was going
to be the greatest benefactor not only of the Arabs but of all mankind. One of the notable
events that took place during the incumbency of Abdul Muttalib as the guardian of Kaaba,
was the invasion of Makkah by an Abyssinian army led by the Christian general, Abraha. The
attempt to capture Makkah failed as reported in the following verses of the Holy
Qur’an. "And He sent against them flights of birds,
Striking them with stones of baked clay, Then He made them like an empty field of stalks
and straw, all eaten up." (Chapter 105, Verses 3, 4, 5.) Since the invaders had brought some elephants with
them, the year of their campaign came to be known as the "Year of the Elephant".
The Year of the Elephant coincides with the year A.D. 570 which also happens to be the
year of the birth of Muhammad, the future prophet. The invading army withdrew from Makkah,
and the terms of truce were negotiated, on behalf of the city of Makkah, by Abdul
Muttalib. Sir John Glubb In 570 Abraha, the Christian Abyssinian viceroy of
the Yemen marched on Mecca. Quraish were too timid or too weak to oppose the Abyssinian
army and Abdul Muttalib, at the head of a deputation, went out to negotiate with Abraha.
(The Great Arab Conquests, 1963) One of the distant cousins of Hashim was one Abd
Shams. A certain Umayya who claimed to be his son, was jealous of Abdul Muttalib's
ascendancy and prestige. At one time, he made an attempt to grab his power and authority
but failed. The failure rankled in his heart. He nursed a hatred against Abdul Muttalib
and his children, and passed it on to his own sons and grandsons who came to be known as
the Banu Umayya. But there was more than mere tribal jealousy in the
hostility of the Banu Umayya toward Banu Hashim. The two clans were the antithesis of each
other in character and temperament, and in their outlook on and attitude toward life, as
the events were soon to reveal when the former led the pack in opposition to Islam. The Banu Hashim were destined to be the bulwark of
Islam. God Himself chose them for this glorious destiny. Ibn Khaldun, the famous historian
and sociologist, writes in his Muqaddimah (Prolegomena) that all true prophets must enjoy
the support of some powerful group. This support, he says, is necessary, because it serves
as a buffer that protects them against their antagonists and gives them a measure of
security without which they cannot carry out their Divine mission. In the case of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, the
Banu Hashim constituted the "powerful group" that protected him from the
malevolence of the Banu Umayya, provided him security and enabled him to carry out his
Divine mission.Abdul Muttalib had ten sons. Four of them became famous in history. They
were: 1.Abdullah, the father of Muhammad. 2.Abu Talib, the father of Ali. 3.Hamza, the hero-martyr of the battle of
Uhud. 4.Abbas, the forebear of the Abbasi caliphs of
Baghdad. Abdullah and Abu Talib were the children of the same
mother whereas the other eight sons of Abdul Muttalib were born of his other wives.
