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Islam Spreads
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| At-Tufayl ibn Amr ad-Dawsi came to Makkah. He was a noble man, a poet, and intelligent. The Quraysh warned him against the Messenger of Allah. As a result, he was afraid to go near him to listen to him. 'By Allah,' At-Tufayl said, 'they kept at me until I decided not to listen to him at all nor to speak with him, to the extent that I stuffed my ears with cotton. I went to the mosque and the Messenger of Allah was standing there praying at the Ka'bah. I stood near him and Allah had decided that I should hear some of his words. I heard some good words and said to myself, "By Allah, I am an intelligent man, a poet. The difference between good and evil is not concealed from me. Why should I not listen to what this man says! If what he brings is good, I will accept it. If it is evil, I will leave it." ' At-Tufayl met the Messenger of Allah in his house and told him what had happened. The Messenger of Allah offered him Islam and recited the Qur'an to him. At-Tufayl became a Muslim and returned to his people to call them to Islam. He refused to live with his family until they all became Muslims. Eventually the whole tribe of Daws turned to Islam. The journey to Ta'if After Abu Talib's death, the Messenger of Allah suffered more than ever before. The Quraysh had been restrained during the lifetime of Abu Talib but now they stepped up their victimisation campaign. One even accosted him and showered dust on his head. When the insults from the Quraysh became unbearable and they refused to have anything to do with Islam, the Messenger of Allah went to Ta'if to ask help of the Thaqif people and to call them to Islam. He hoped they would be sympathetic to his call. On arriving in Ta'if, he went to the leaders and nobles of Thaqif, talked with them and called them to Allah. They, however, were rude to him and ridiculed him. They incited the town's riff-raff to shout insults at him and stone him. He retired, distressed, to the shade of a palm-tree where he sat down. Nowhere had he encountered worse treatment than that which he received at the hands of the idol-worshippers in Ta'if. |
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