Five Men Who Broke the Boycott

Hishām ibn al-Ḥārith went to Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah, and he told Zuhayr: "Does it please you that you are eating well and dressing well while your own uncles are in that situation of distress? On my part, I swear that if these people were the uncles of Abū Jahl, Abū al-Ḥakam, he would not have done so." Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah was also a relative of Banū Hāshim; they were his relatives from the mother's side. Hishām is telling Zuhayr: "How can you accept to see your uncles going through that misery and you do nothing? And the one who is calling us to do this is Abū al-Ḥakam, Abū Jahl. Now, if these were his uncles, he would not have treated them that way. How come we have to go along with this?"

It is just like a power today asking the Muslim countries to boycott such and such a Muslim country, but then if the same thing was done by Israel, that power would never ask for an embargo on Israel — imagine if Israel had done similar to what Iraq had done, and by the way, they have done more already, but would that power ever ask for or call for an embargo against Israel? Never. So there is a double standard, and Hishām ibn al-Ḥārith was saying: Abū Jahl is calling us to boycott our uncles, and he would never do the same to his own, because obviously Abū Jahl was the spearhead of all of these efforts — one would always find Abū Jahl in these places.

Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah responded and said, "Shame on you, Hishām. Who am I but one man? What can I do? In the name of Allah, if I had another person beside me, I would go about abrogating that document." Hishām said, "Well, there is a person with you." He said, "Who is it?" "Myself, I'm going to be with you." Zuhayr said, "Then find us a third person." Hishām set off to find the third person. He went to al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiy. He told al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiy: "Al-Muṭʿim, are you pleased to have two clans of Banū ʿAbd Manāf suffer while you look on, in agreement with Quraysh, about that? By God, if you enable them to do this, they will soon be treating you the same way." If they allow this precedent to be set, it could backfire, and one day it could happen to them too. Al-Muṭʿim said, "Well, what am I able to do? I'm just one person." Hishām said, "No, you're not one person. There's a second person with you." He said, "Who is it?" "Myself." Al-Muṭʿim said, "How about you find us a third person?" "I did — who is it? Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah." Al-Muṭʿim said, "Find us a fourth." Hishām went to Abū al-Bukhtarī and presented to him the same thing, and Abū al-Bukhtarī said, "Well, we need more people" — he said, "we're now four" — he said, "go and find us a fifth." Hishām went — he was doing something, he was working, he was lobbying against this oppression of Quraysh — so he went and got a fifth person, which was Zamʿah ibn al-Aswad.

Now they decided that they were going to go and meet at night in al-Ḥujūn. So they all met together in al-Ḥujūn, and the agreement was that tomorrow morning they were going to set about destroying this document, but they were going to make it seem as if it was spontaneous. So the next day in the morning, Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah goes in with the special clothes, the ceremonial gown that he had on, and he made ṭawāf — and that was the time in which the assembly of Quraysh meets, and their meeting place was in a meeting-hall close by to the Kaʿbah. So Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah, wearing those special clothes, made ṭawāf, and then he came and stood right above the assembly of Quraysh. And he told them, "O people of Quraysh, does it please you to eat well and to dress at will while Banū Hāshim and Banū al-Muṭṭalib are going through distress? I swear in the name of Allah, I'm not going to take a seat unless that document is torn apart." Now, a second person from the five stood up, as if it was spontaneous, as if they did not coordinate this among themselves, and said, "Yes, I never agreed to that document from the day it was written." And now a third person stood up and said, "I swear that I have nothing to do with such a document, and I don't want to be part of such an agreement." And the fourth person stood up, and then finally Hishām himself gave some comments. Now Abū Jahl stood up and he said, "Hādhā amrun dubbira bi-layl — this is something that you planned at night." Do not tell me that it was spontaneous; you planned this beforehand. But it was too late.

Things were already getting out of control, and al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiy went into the Kaʿbah to tear down the document, and — SubḥānAllāh — he goes in, and he finds that the document has already been eaten up by termites, with the exception of two words: Bismika Allāhumma, in Your name, O Allah. Everything else was eaten — all of the oppression of the document was eaten, with the exception of the opening words, Bismika Allāhumma, in the name of Allah. So the embargo was ended after two or three years.

Two lessons to learn from this: number one, one can see here that five people can make a difference. The whole embargo was abrogated due to the effort of five people. Actually, it all started by Hishām ibn al-Ḥārith alone; it started as an idea in the mind of this man, and he set about to implement it, and he recruited a few people around him, and he brought an end to this corrupt agreement, the agreement of oppression. So this shows the value of organisation; five people came together and had an organised plan, and they were able to bring an end to the embargo. So this is the value of working together, this is the value of having organised work. And then it shows that a person needs to take some action. Hishām went to the first person; the first person told him — he gave him a pessimistic view. He said, "I'm only one person, what can I do?" Hishām said, "Will you have a second person with you?" He said, "Fine, a third." Hishām set about to find a third. He was a man of action, and he was able to recruit five people, and they made a difference. This religion needs action — and even though these were kāfir, these were mushrikīn, there is a valuable lesson to learn from this: that one needs to take the first step, one needs to do some action.