Budayl, Mikraz and al-Ḥulays

Quraysh were also sending envoys. The first they sent was Budayl ibn Warqāʾ. Budayl ibn Warqāʾ came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him); he belonged to the tribe of Khuzāʿah, and he came along with some men of Khuzāʿah. As the books say, they were ʿaybat nuṣḥ for the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him): they were trustworthy advisers of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), the disbelievers among them and the Muslims among them. They were very sympathetic towards the Muslims, and they were advisers of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). One narration says that anything that went on in Makkah, the people of Khuzāʿah would report it to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had information from within, and those bringing the information to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) were both Muslim and non-Muslim.

This was a sort of tribal alliance, because Khuzāʿah had been allies of Banū Hāshim in the time of Jāhiliyyah, and the leader of Banū Hāshim now was the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him); he was the most prominent figure among them. Khuzāʿah carried on this alliance even though many of them were mushrikūn; they still considered themselves close to Banū Hāshim and close to the Muslims. This shows the situation that existed then, and there could be a lot of insight in this story, in the relations between the clans and tribes that existed then, and in how the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was successful in his war. One can also see that part of that success was his information-gathering: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) always had spies roaming Arabia to gather information for him, and here there were insiders from within Makkah, because Khuzāʿah lived on the outskirts of Makkah, very close to Makkah, and they would report to him whatever was going on in the camp of Quraysh.

So Budayl ibn Warqāʾ was the first envoy sent to meet the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). He came to Muḥammad (peace be upon him) and told him that Quraysh had come out with al-ʿūdh al-maṭāfīl, the camels with milk — meaning that they had come out with provisions, intending to stay a long time if circumstances demanded it. And he told him that they had put on tiger skins, and they were ready for war. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: we have not come to fight anyone; we have come to make ʿumrah. Woe to Quraysh — war has consumed them; it has ruined them. If they wish, I will give them a respite for a while, and they should leave me to deal with the people. If I prevail, and they wish to enter into what the people have entered, they may do so; otherwise, they will have rested. If they refuse this, then I swear by Him in whose hand is my soul, I will fight them in this cause of mine until I perish, and the will of Allah will be done.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was telling Quraysh: you have the option of either leaving me alone or fighting me; and if you choose to fight me, I will win, and the religion of Allah will prevail, and I am not going to give up — I am never going to give up, even if I perish. So he was making it clear to them that he was not going to give up. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was telling them that they had been exhausted by war. As was said earlier, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said after the Battle of al-Khandaq, al-āna naghzūhum wa lā yaghzūnanā: from now on we will march on them, and they will not march on us. And that is what happened: Quraysh were now on the defensive. They had no ability to wage an offensive battle against the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

Budayl ibn Warqāʾ said to the Messenger of Allah: I am going to tell them; I am going to convey to them this message. Budayl went back to Makkah, and the people of Quraysh said: he wants you to ask him what happened; ignore him. So Budayl came in, waiting for someone to ask him what had happened, and they were all quiet. So he told them: do you want me to tell you what happened? ʿIkrimah ibn Abī Jahl said: we do not want to hear anything from you. They knew his sympathy towards the Muslims. But then Ṣafwān ibn Umayyah and some others said: go ahead and tell us what happened. And he conveyed to them the message of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and they did not like what they heard.

So now they sent another man, a man called Mikraz ibn Ḥafṣ. When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saw him, he said: this is a man of treachery. Why did the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say that about him? The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) knew his nature. Subḥān Allāh, after that he led a force of forty or fifty men from Quraysh with the intention of circling around the Muslim camp, trying to find any loner to take prisoner. They wanted to find anybody who strayed away from the army, to capture him and take him back to Quraysh. What happened was the other way around: it was the Muslims who took them prisoner — all of them except Mikraz, who ran away. They came to take prisoners, and they were taken prisoner themselves. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), because he had come out with the intention of peace, released them all, with no condition.

Then al-Ḥulays ibn ʿAlqamah, the head of al-Aḥābīsh, the allies of Quraysh, offered to go and meet the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saw him, he said: this is a man from a people who are devout; drive the sacrificial animals out in front of him, so that he sees them. So all the Muslims had to do was to show their intention of ʿumrah publicly. And this man, as soon as he saw that, walked away without even meeting the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him); he was so moved by what he saw. He went back to the people of Quraysh and said: glory be to Allah! It is not right for these people to be kept from al-Kaʿbah.

And this was a mushrik, a kāfir. But he saw it as against the tradition, against the accepted norms of the time, to prevent people who had come out for ʿumrah from entering the House of Allah. It is as if he was saying: who are you people of Quraysh to prevent the people from coming to al-Kaʿbah? And in another narration he said: Allah will not allow Lakhm, Judhām, Kindah and Ḥimyar to make pilgrimage, while the son of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib is prevented from it. These four tribes he mentioned belong to the Yemeni branch of the Arabs, al-Qaḥṭāniyyūn; that is one thing. The second is that they live in the furthest parts of Arabia: Lakhm and Judhām live in the extreme north of Arabia, in al-Shām, and Kindah and Ḥimyar in the extreme south, in the southern parts of Yemen. And he was telling them: these tribes are allowed to come and visit the House of Allah, while the son of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib — who is of the people of ʿAdnān, the people of Quraysh, and is from Makkah itself — you prevent him? And he was very angry.

The people of Quraysh told him: just sit down; you are a Bedouin without any sense. Al-Ḥulays was very angry at that, and said: O Quraysh, it was not for this that we allied ourselves with you and made a pact with you. Shall someone who has come to venerate the House of Allah be barred from it? By Him in whose hand is the soul of al-Ḥulays, either you allow Muḥammad to do what he has come for, or I will take away al-Aḥābīsh to the last man. He threatened them with war. Then the people of Quraysh calmed him down and said: keep quiet, and leave us alone until we get for ourselves what we want. They were just trying to save face.