The Tribe That Asked About Power

"I swear, if I had this brave man of Quraysh with me, I could eat up the Arabs with him." Bayḥarah was thinking politics: he wanted to recruit the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) — why? To conquer the lands of the Arabs, for he had seen that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) possessed unique qualities. He said to him: "If we were to follow your orders, and Allah then gave you victory against those opposing you, would we have power after you were gone?" The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) answered that the earth belongs to Allah, and He gives power to whomsoever He wishes — this was not something he could give; it was in the hands of Allah, not a matter of authority and power — this was not a power struggle. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was telling him: "This is a matter of religion. The earth belongs to Allah." The man responded: "Are we to present our throats to the Arabs in your defence, and then, if Allah gave you victory, see power go elsewhere than to us?" He understood that standing with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was a risk that would have to be fought for, and he was saying that they would not sacrifice their lives only to see power transferred to someone else — they would have nothing to do with it. He turned down the offer of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and rejected the message.

Banū ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿah returned to their homeland, where there was a wise elder among them. Because of his age he had not been able to attend the pilgrimage, but whenever the others returned he would ask them about what had happened. When they came back this time, they told him: "We met a young man, the grandson of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib from Quraysh, who was claiming to be a prophet. He came to us, and we rejected him." The old man put his hand over his forehead and said: "Could your mistake be put right? Can its consequences be reversed? I swear no descendant of Ismāʿīl ever made such a claim falsely — it has to be true. Where did your good judgement go?" This wise elder was telling them that none of the descendants of Ismāʿīl (peace be upon him) had ever claimed to be a prophet; this was not something common among the Arabs, who did not even know the concept of prophethood well enough to claim it falsely. The Arabs were an illiterate nation with no history of prophethood among them — the last prophet they knew of was Ismāʿīl (peace be upon him), more than two thousand years before that — so for someone among them to claim prophethood was something that had never happened. So this old man was saying: "It must be true. Where was your good judgement?" And then he said: "Is this a mistake that can be rectified? Is this something that we can fix?"