ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd at al-Ḥudaybiyah

All of the envoys were a failure. Then ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd came to the people of Quraysh and said to them: are you not as a father to me, and am I not as a son? — are you not the ones who gave birth to me, and I am your son? ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd was from the tribe of Thaqīf, who come from al-Ṭāʾif, but his mother was from Quraysh. He was one of the great men of Arabia. In fact, he was one of the names suggested when the mushrikūn said:

Why was this book not revealed to one of the great men of the two towns? They were referring to Makkah and al-Ṭāʾif. So the mushrikūn were saying: why did Allah choose Muḥammad? Why did He not choose ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd? So he was an important figure.

He came to Quraysh, and he saw that none of this was making sense. So he told them: I am your son; do you want me to go and see this man? They said: yes. But then he told them: I have seen all the insults you have poured on the heads of those who went as envoys for you. Whenever anyone came back, whether al-Ḥulays or Budayl ibn Warqāʾ, they would insult them. They sent them, and then they insulted them when they came back, because they came back with an answer different from what they wanted to hear. So ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd did not want the same thing to happen to him. They said: we trust you; go and speak to him.

So ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd went to Muḥammad (peace be upon him), and he said: now, Muḥammad, have you considered that you are ruining your own people? Have you heard of any Arab who ruined his people before you? And if it goes the other way — I swear, I do not see faces here; I just see a hodgepodge of people who are quite capable of fleeing and abandoning you. ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd was putting to Muḥammad (peace be upon him) the two options as he saw them. The first option is that you win by ruining your own people. So he told him: have you ever seen an Arab man who ruined his own tribe? This was a tribal society; the tribe was everything. And the way ʿUrwah saw it, Muḥammad (peace be upon him) was invading his own people, and that was unacceptable: we have not heard of anyone who has done such a thing before you. He was trying to tell him: this is a disgrace and a shameful thing to do, so do not do it.

And the other option is that you will be defeated, and he saw this as a likely option, because he said — and in another narration, ashwāban min al-nās — I see a hodgepodge of people who are about to flee and leave you. What he was referring to is that the Companions were from different tribes. They belonged to Quraysh; they belonged to al-Aws, al-Khazraj, Aslam, Ghifār. And some of these tribes, like Aslam and Ghifār, were seen by people like ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd as second-class tribes. There were the major tribes, Thaqīf and Quraysh, and then these smaller tribes like Aslam and Ghifār. And, subḥān Allāh, the larger tribes were slow in accepting Islam because of their arrogance and pride; they felt that Islam would take away their position of prominence. But these smaller tribes were more willing to listen to the truth, because these barriers were not before them. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says in a hadith that these tribes are better than Tamīm and Ghaṭafān and Asad — the big tribes that people look up to. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said that on the Day of Judgement these smaller tribes, like Muzaynah and Juhaynah and Aslam and Ghifār, are heavier on the scale than Tamīm and Asad and Ghaṭafān and their like (al-Bukhārī 3516). But ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd was viewing things from the tribal view of the Jāhiliyyah. He said: what I see is a hodgepodge, a mob of people who, when things get serious, when the rubber hits the road, are going to leave you alone; they are going to flee and leave you.

When Abū Bakr heard that, he saw it as a great insult that would not go unanswered. So he told him: go and suck the clitoris of al-Lāt! Would we flee and abandon him? This was a big insult. The Arabs used to insult each other in this way; it was a curse among them. They would say: suck on your mother's clitoris. These words are used here because this is knowledge mentioned in the books, and there is no shame in religion; this is only narrating what is mentioned in the books of al-sīrah. So Abū Bakr changed it here, and replaced "mother" with al-Lāt, and al-Lāt was the major god of the people of Thaqīf. So it was a great insult to ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd to say this to him.

ʿUrwah stared at Abū Bakr and told him: were it not for a favour you once did me, which I have not repaid, I would have answered you; but I will stay quiet, and by this I have repaid you your favour. ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd was referring to the fact that he had once been responsible for paying blood money — and blood money is a hundred camels. So he called on people, his friends, to help him out, and people helped him out with one camel, two camels, three camels; Abū Bakr helped him out with ten. This was in the time of Jāhiliyyah; Abū Bakr was a very generous man. And the insult was so great that ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd saw that he had repaid Abū Bakr for his favour of ten camels just by remaining silent and not answering him, because this was a big curse against al-Lāt. But Abū Bakr's temper could not bear such a remark from ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd — to say that the Muslims were going to flee and leave the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) alone.

What kind of impression do the actions of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) give the kuffār, when they see their solidarity, their strength and their willingness to sacrifice for the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him)? No watered-down message. No weakness when it comes to the defence of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him): we are going to fight for him, and we are never going to leave him alone.

And then ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd, when he spoke to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), would reach out his hand to hold his beard. This was something people would do in those days when they talked with each other; it was acceptable. But here, who was ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd talking with? He was talking with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). So whenever he reached out his hand, al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah — who was standing beside the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) to guard him while the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) sat, with his sword in his hand — would strike the hand of ʿUrwah with the hilt of his sword and tell him: keep your hand away from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), otherwise it is not going to come back to you; I am going to cut it off.

Al-Mughīrah was covered in armour from head to toe, and only his eyes could be seen, so ʿUrwah did not know who this man was. So he told the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), in one narration: how coarse and rude he is! And in another narration he told the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him): I do not think there is any man in your army more wicked than this man; who is he? The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) smiled and said: this is your nephew, al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah. Al-Mughīrah was the nephew of ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd. What a surprise it must have been for ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd to see that the man who was roughest with him was his own nephew!

And then ʿUrwah said: O treacherous one, did I not only yesterday wash away your treachery? What ʿUrwah was referring to here: al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah, in the time of Jāhiliyyah, travelled with thirteen mushrikūn, and he killed them all, stole their money, and then ran away to Madīnah to become Muslim. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him: I accept Islam from you, but I will not accept this money — because there was trust among these travellers, and he betrayed them and took their money. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: I want nothing to do with this money. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not pay it back to the mushrikūn; he did not apologise to the mushrikūn; but at the same time he refused to accept it, because the way it was taken was not right. ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd was the one who had to pay, being the relative of al-Mughīrah, and he also had to pay the blood money for all of these men whom al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah killed. So he was telling al-Mughīrah: I have just taken care of your treachery, and this is how you treat me?

So it can be seen how Islam changed the hearts of these men, and how they put their love of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ahead of any personal consideration. Al-Mughīrah here had been helped by his uncle, and at the least he should have felt gratitude for that; but his love of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was so great that he dealt with ʿUrwah in this manner, because he saw him as being disrespectful to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). The statement of Abū Bakr and the action of al-Mughīrah are amazing examples of how the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) loved the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). One might not appreciate this until one puts oneself in their shoes — until one starts to think the way they were thinking, puts oneself in those circumstances, and sees how difficult it would be to act in such a way without a very deep and sincere love of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

Ibn Ḥajar comments on the statement of ʿUrwah, when he said that there were two options: that he fight his people and defeat them, and so ruin his people; or that his followers leave him, and he be taken prisoner. Ibn Ḥajar says that ʿUrwah set out the matter between two things that are not approved of by custom — the destruction of his people if he won, and the desertion of his companions if he lost — but that each of the two is approved of in the Sharīʿah, as Allah the Exalted says:

ʿUrwah saw the two options as disliked because of the norms: the defeat of his people if he won, and the flight of his companions if he lost. However, both of these outcomes are praised in the Sharīʿah, in Islam. Islam changes the way we look at things; our norms, our traditions, our view change because of Islam. So Ibn Ḥajar is saying that if the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) defeated his people, that is something praised in the Sharīʿah, even though it is his own tribe, because it is fī sabīlillāh; and if the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) lost, that too is praiseworthy, because it is fī sabīlillāh. And Allah (swt) says, qul hal tarabbaṣūna binā illā iḥdā al-ḥusnayayn: Allah is telling the Muslims to tell the disbelievers: what are you waiting for to happen to us? Both are good for us, whether we win or we lose.

ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd had the experience of a lifetime. He went back to Quraysh, and what did he say? He said: I have visited kings. I have had audiences with Caesar, Chosroes and the Negus, and I swear by Allah, I have never seen the subjects of any king venerate him the way the companions of Muḥammad venerate Muḥammad. I swear, if he spits, it falls into the palm of one of them, and he rubs it on his face and skin. If he gives them a command, they hurry to carry it out. If he speaks, they lower their voices in his presence, and they never look directly at him, out of their veneration for him. He has made you an offer, so accept it. And according to al-Zuhrī he said: I have seen a people who would never abandon him for any reason, so draw your own conclusions.

He came with some ideas, but they changed when he saw the reality of the situation before his eyes. When the Messenger of Allah made wuḍūʾ, the Companions would rush to catch the droplets of water that fell from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and they would rub them on their skin, to get the blessing of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). If a hair fell, they would take it and keep it. If he spat, they would take that and rub it on themselves. They saw that everything to do with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had the blessing of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in it. This was their respect and love for the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd, the seasoned man, this leader in his society, the man who had travelled the world and met the greatest kings of the time — Qayṣar, Kisrā and al-Najāshī — said: I have never seen anything like what I saw at al-Ḥudaybiyah. He was amazed; he was surprised. Later on, he would become Muslim.

This is the living example of daʿwah — not the daʿwah of words, but the daʿwah of actions. We need the daʿwah of words, but we need the daʿwah of actions to confirm it. ʿUrwah had heard the daʿwah of words, but now he saw it with his own eyes: he saw the embodiment of the daʿwah of Islam in front of his eyes. He told the people of Quraysh: Muḥammad (peace be upon him) has made you an offer; accept it. There is no way you can defeat these people; I do not see any hope for you. He has made you an offer; take it.