From the Door of the Kaʿbah

And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) came out of the Kaʿbah and stood at the door of the Kaʿbah, which was high, and by now all of the people were gathering around him. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) spoke to the crowd. The people of Quraysh all came out now to listen to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

Go back a few years, to when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) received the first revelation from Allah (ʿazza wa jall) and was commanded to deliver the warning to his people:

Warn your close relatives, or your clan. That was at the beginning. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) stood on a mountain in Makkah and said: wā ṣabāḥāh! And this is the call made when there is an emergency. One does not just say wā ṣabāḥāh for nothing; one says it when there is something very urgent, because everybody is going to respond; it is a serious call. So all of the people came, and those who could not come sent a representative to listen. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: innī nadhīrun lakum bayna yaday ʿadhābin shadīd — I am delivering a warning to you before a severe punishment befalls you (al-Bukhārī 4770). When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said this, Abū Lahab said: tabban laka, a-li-hādhā daʿawtanā? — may you perish; is this why you summoned us? Abū Lahab was buying and selling, a businessman; he had left his shop and come to listen to what the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had to say, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had this message to deliver to them. He was upset and angry, and the crowds left.

And from that time on, no one wanted to listen to what the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had to say — and imagine how difficult it is to deliver daʿwah to people who do not want to listen. But now, since the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was leading an army, now that he had strength, and since he was a head of state, everybody came voluntarily to listen. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not call anyone. By the time the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) came out, turned his back and faced the people, all of the people of Makkah were below him, listening to what he had to say and watching his every move. Because when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) went to the well of Zamzam to drink from it and make wuḍūʾ, the Companions were rushing to catch the water that dripped from his body, and then they would wipe it over their skin. So the people of Quraysh were saying: we have never seen such a king before. Now they were watching every single movement of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and they were reporting it; that is how this incident is known — it is because they reported it. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) now is the same Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) as then; but people go by — in the beginning, because the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not have strength, no one wanted to listen to what he had to say. But now it was different.

So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) delivered a short speech from the door of the Kaʿbah. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: al-ḥamdu lillāh, praise be to Allah, who has fulfilled His promise — ṣadaqa waʿdah — wa naṣara ʿabdah, and has helped His servant, wa hazama al-aḥzāba waḥdah, and has defeated the confederates alone. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) instituted some new laws in Makkah. Compensation for those killed by quasi-intent, by whip or by stick, shall be a hundred camels — this is the diyah of shibh al-ʿamd. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told them: all privilege of ancestry and pride that existed in the Jāhiliyyah is finished.

Listen to the statement: all privilege of ancestry and pride that existed in the Jāhiliyyah is finished. These were the foundations of the society of the Jāhiliyyah: the foundation, the constitution, the laws, the customs of the Arabs of the Jāhiliyyah were based on this — privilege of ancestry, and pride. In this one statement the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was bringing in a new era. He was telling the people who were listening below his feet that the time of the Jāhiliyyah — the rules of the Jāhiliyyah, the customs of the Jāhiliyyah — were all behind their backs now; they were all finished. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was bringing in a new era. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was telling the kuffār that kufr was over with: I am not going to accommodate you; I am not going to accept your laws; I am not going to accept your customs and ways; it is all finished. In another narration the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: both of these — meaning ancestry and pride — are beneath these feet of mine. They are under my feet; they are over with.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not try to win over the hearts of the people of Quraysh by accepting some of their rules and customs — the people of Quraysh, who would fight for their customs, who would die for their customs, who fought against the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) for twenty years for no purpose other than the purpose of protecting the old way. They were not religious people, by the way. Even though they had three hundred and sixty idols surrounding the Kaʿbah, they were not known to be religious people; it was the status quo they were trying to protect. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not try to win them over by accepting some of the Jāhiliyyah. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), in the first speech delivered in Makkah, made it clear: your ways are under my feet.