Abū Sufyān in Madīnah

So Abū Sufyān went to Madīnah. Where would he go? He would obviously go to the house of his daughter, Umm Ḥabībah, who was the wife of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), Umm al-Muʾminīn. When he entered the house, there was a rug on the floor, and he wanted to sit on that rug. Umm Ḥabībah pulled it away from him and folded it up. Abū Sufyān said: mā adrī a-raghibti bī ʿan hādhā al-firāsh am raghibti bihi ʿannī — I do not know: did you fold up and take away this rug because you see it as not befitting me, or because you see me as not befitting the rug? Umm Ḥabībah said: huwa firāshu Rasūli Allāh, wa anta mushrikun najis, fa-lam uḥibba an tajlisa ʿalā firāshih — this rug belongs to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and you are a dirty polytheist — you are a dirty mushrik — and I do not want you to sit on the rug of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

This is the loyalty they had towards the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). Umm Ḥabībah was speaking to her father, her own father; but she did not even want him — and he was her father — to sit on the rug that belonged to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). Why? Because she understood that kufr is najāsah. This is the walāʾ and barāʾ the Muslim should have. And Umm Ḥabībah was not dealing with a commoner of Quraysh; she was dealing with the leader, the chief of the tribe of Quraysh, and these were her words to him. Abū Sufyān was shocked, and he said: O my daughter, by Allah, evil has befallen you since —

And then Abū Sufyān went to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and told him: I want to add to the time — I want to renew the pact and extend the time of our truce. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him: has something happened on your side? We already have an agreement, and it is for ten years; what is the point of coming now, after seventeen or eighteen months, asking for it to be renewed? The agreement is already there, so what is the point of coming here? So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) asked Abū Sufyān: has anything happened? Abū Sufyān said: no, everything is fine. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) walked away. The Messenger of Allah ignored him: he walked away from Abū Sufyān and did not respond to him.

Abū Sufyān then went to Abū Bakr and told him: I want you to speak to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) — to intercede on my behalf, and to ask the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) to renew the pact. Abū Bakr told him: I will not do that. And then Abū Sufyān went to ʿUmar. Now, they all knew who ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb was; they knew the nature and the character of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. But think about the state of humiliation and humbleness — and humbleness is said because the people of Quraysh used to deal with the Muslims with such pride and arrogance. And now Abū Sufyān is not — the word humbleness should not even be used; it is humiliation. He came in a humiliated state, begging, begging the Muslims to renew the pact.

Think about this for a moment, and compare it with the situation of the leaders of Quraysh when the Muslims were in Makkah, and see how low they had become a few years later. Now Abū Sufyān himself — a leader who used to see himself as above the level of speaking to the Muslims — was going from house to house begging them to go to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), because the Messenger of Allah had ignored him; the Messenger of Allah had just walked away. So now Abū Sufyān went to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and told him: I want you to intercede on our behalf and ask the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) to renew the pact. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said: a-ana ashfaʿu lakum ʿinda Rasūli Allāh? Wa-llāhi law lam ajid lakum illā al-dharra la-jāhadtukum bih — you want me to intercede on your behalf with the Messenger of Allah? By Allah, if I found nothing but ants to fight you with, I would fight you with them. If I had no men to fight you with and had to fight you with ants, I would do so. Abū Sufyān left.