Two Attempts to Split the Anṣār

The enemy was trying to disunite the Muslims. Abū Sufyān sent a message to the Anṣār; he said, as al-Maqdisī narrates: "Leave us alone to fight with our cousin, because we have no purpose in fighting you." Subḥānallāh — now they say this; was it not Quraysh who sent a letter to the Anṣār as soon as the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) made hijrah to them, threatening that they would kill their men, enslave their women and take their money? Now suddenly they say they have no objective in fighting them — this is but a lie, a trick, and the kuffār did that yesterday and they will do it today. What they were trying to do was split the Muslims into pieces small enough that they could eat them one by one, as the saying goes: "I was eaten the day the white bull was eaten" — meaning it is only to defeat one portion at a time, and had the Anṣār allowed that to happen, they would have been next. Just like what is seen today: the claim is that "we are just fighting the terrorists, but the rest of the Muslims are fine, they are peaceful, we don't have a problem with them." That is just a strategy for the day; after the so-called terrorists are defeated, they would move on to the next stage, and that is the rest of the Ummah. This has been heard again and again: it is just Palestine now, and it is just Iraq now, and tomorrow other Muslim countries will be seen invaded and their wealth plundered, if the Muslims do not stand up and unite.

The people of Quraysh tried again to disunite the Muslims by sending Abū ʿĀmir al-Fāsiq. Abū ʿĀmir was one of the Aws, and he was so loved by them, and he was such a righteous man, a religious man, that he was called Abū ʿĀmir al-Rāhib — the monk — that is the name his people gave him, because he was such a devoted worshipper of Allah (swt). He refused to become Muslim, and joined the army of Quraysh, and had been with them for some time; he had left Madīnah when Islam entered it. When he came out with the army of Quraysh, he said, "I will go and convince my people not to fight with Muḥammad (peace be upon him)," and he was confident he could do so because they loved him so much they would not turn him down. But when he went to meet them, they started cursing him, so he said, "Some evil has befallen my people after I left" — or rather, it was not evil, it was Islam that had changed them. So the second attempt to disunite the ummah failed.