The Letter From the King of Ghassān

He said: while I was walking around in the marketplace of Madīnah, a Nabataean — the people of the Nabataeans were from Jordan, in al-Shām — a merchant who had brought some food to sell in Madīnah, was asking people to point out Kaʿb ibn Mālik to him. So they directed him to me. And then he came to me and handed me a letter from the king of Ghassān. The king of Ghassān was a Christian who hated the Muslims and hated the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). It says in the books of sīrah that he wanted to raise an army and ask Heraclius for support, because he was a proxy of Heraclius. These were kings with big titles and names, but they were traitors, and agents of Heraclius. So he wanted to ask Heraclius' permission to attack Madīnah; and it was actually Heraclius who told him to stop and hold tight, and not to attack Muḥammad (peace be upon him), because Heraclius knew that Muḥammad (peace be upon him) was the Messenger of Allah and did not want to start a confrontation with him. So, subḥān Allāh, Heraclius was wiser than the king of Ghassān — who was an Arab and should have had some sympathy towards Muḥammad (peace be upon him). But it shows how the traitors are sometimes worse than their masters.

The king of Ghassān sent a letter to Kaʿb ibn Mālik. So this shows that there was some intelligence-gathering going on, and interest in what was happening in Madīnah: the king of Ghassān had caught word of what had happened with Kaʿb ibn Mālik, and he sent him this letter. Fa-idhā fīh: ammā baʿd, fa-innahu qad balaghanī anna ṣāḥibaka qad jafāk, wa lam yajʿalka Allāhu bi-dāri hawānin wa lā maḍyaʿah, fa-lḥaq binā nuwāsik. The letter said: I have heard that your friend has forsaken you — meaning Muḥammad (peace be upon him) — and Allah has not left you in a place where you will be humiliated and where you will be neglected; so come to us, and we will take care of you.

And here one sees a characteristic of the kuffār. The kuffār are going to try to draw in, and strike deals with, the Muslim leaders whom they see as willing, or as being in a position where they agree with the kuffār on certain issues; or it shows that they will try to break into the Muslim ranks. Here they were trying to draw out one of the members — one of the prominent members — of the Muslim community. They were trying to bring him in, not because they loved him, not because they liked him, but because they had an agenda. And the king of Ghassān, because of his hatred of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the Muslims — that is why he wanted to infiltrate the Muslim society and pull Kaʿb ibn Mālik out of it.

This is something they are doing today. They are willing to fund, to pump money into, and just pour it upon, any Muslims who are going to be sympathetic to their cause. They are willing to sit behind the scenes with Muslims who are willing to promote a watered-down version of Islam; they are willing to sit down and join hands with the RAND Muslims who are willing to spread the version of Islam that appeals to them; and they are willing to spend millions and millions of dollars on that. And Shayṭān can come to some people and say: well, let us take that money and benefit the daʿwah with it; let us take that money and use it to build masājid, or to build schools, or to do this or to do that. And all of that is the deception of Shayṭān, because they are not going to give anything for free: they are going to take something in exchange for what they give; they will definitely take something from you.

So how did Kaʿb ibn Mālik respond, so that one can learn how to respond? Kaʿb ibn Mālik said: fa-qultu lammā qaraʾtuhā: wa hādhā ayḍan min al-balāʾ. Fa-tayammamtu bihā al-tannūra fa-sajartuhu bihā — when I read it, I said: this too is a trial from Allah. I took it and threw it into the oven. That is how their deals should be dealt with: take that deal and throw it into the fire, and do not let such things stay around. Kaʿb ibn Mālik could have kept this letter as a souvenir, but he did not: he threw it into the fire, because it was something dangerous; it was something with a temptation in it. So get rid of it; do not let it sit around; just throw it into the fire.