A Complicated Society

To give an example of this complication: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was riding on his donkey, and he went toward a gathering that included Arabs, Muslim and non-Muslim, and also Jews. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) went to that gathering, and when his donkey arrived, it caused some dust, and ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy, who later became the head of the Munāfiqīn, said, "Keep your dust away from us." And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not respond back to him. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) started preaching Islam to them; he gave them a talk about Islam. When he finished, ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy said, "Do not come and bother us in our meetings with your talk. Stay home, and whoever comes to visit you, then tell them your stories." ʿAbdullāh ibn Rawāḥah, who was a Muslim, he said, "No, we want him to come to our meetings and talk to us." And then people started shouting, and war was almost going to break out, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had to calm them down.

And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) went to the house of Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah and said, "O Saʿd, did you not see what ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy did?" Saʿd asked him what happened, and when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him, Saʿd responded by saying, "O Messenger of Allah, ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy was a man whom his people were almost going to appoint king over them when you arrived, so he sees that you have stripped him of his kingdom, you have stripped him of that post." So Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah was telling the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), it is understandable that he is against you, because he was going to be appointed by al-Khazraj to be king over them. So this was the situation that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was dealing with.