Quraysh Sends ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ to al-Najāshī

So the people of Quraysh assembled a delegation to go and meet with al-Najāshī, to ask him to turn over the Muslims. And who did they choose for this mission? ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ and ʿAbdullāh ibn Rabīʿah in one narration, and ʿAmr ibn Rabīʿah in another narration. But the central figure here is ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ. ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ was a diplomat, was a very intelligent man of Quraysh. He had wide connections, he was a friend of the kings of the world at that time, so he was the right person to choose. And he was a mastermind in plotting and planning, clearly very good at conspiracies against the Muslims. That was the personality of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ before Islam.

ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ went to al-Najāshī, and the plan was that he would go and meet the top officials first, and give every one of them gifts — or, in other words, bribes — and present to them his case, and say that "in your land are some fools who ran away from Makkah, we want you to turn them over." So he wanted to work it out with all of the top officials before he met with al-Najāshī, so that when he talked to al-Najāshī and al-Najāshī consulted his officials, they would all give him a unified opinion that he should hand them over. So he went to every one of them, had a meeting with every one of them, and gave them gifts, and then he went to meet al-Najāshī, and he told the officials that he preferred that they hand over these people without meeting al-Najāshī — he didn't want them to meet al-Najāshī, because their words are very effective, they feared the Qur'an.

So he worked out the plan, and he went to meet al-Najāshī, and he told al-Najāshī that there are some fools among us who came to your land — "we know them, and if they left our religion, they didn't follow yours" — and he went on and on and on, and in the end he said, "We want you to hand them over to us." Now, all of the officials were already there, and they said, "Yes, hand them over." And al-Najāshī said, "No. I won't hand over people who sought refuge in my land until I hear their side of the story" — this shows the justice that al-Najāshī had, and the choice of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) to have the Ṣaḥābah go to the right place.

So al-Najāshī called the Muslims to come and meet him. The Muslims received the message — they were told that ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ had met with al-Najāshī, and al-Najāshī wanted to meet them. So they had a shūrā, an advice, and Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib was to be their spokesman — the only spokesman — and that they were going to speak the truth. They went in to meet al-Najāshī, and al-Najāshī asked them, "What religion are you following? You left the religion of your people, you didn't join my religion, you didn't join any of the religions of the world. Who are you?"