The harbinger of Taif

The call of Umayya ibn Abi al-Salt

Author's name: Muhammad Yahya

Would all of this be lost and insignificant to Allah, then He sends a man from Quraysh who did not go out in His cause for an hour of the day?! Would my Lord abandon me, when I had aided Him? Would He show favoritism toward Muhammad over me, when I used to speak to the leaders of Qais about his right and his law, fearing neither the blame of a blamer nor the treachery of a tyrant, while Muhammad was tending sheep outside Mecca! Does a man seek his Lord only to be turned away from Him?!” A profound psychological struggle that centered the journey of the most famous of the pre-Islamic Arab Hanafis, the most knowledgeable and averse to idols and pre-Islamic customs. He himself tells us about it in these lines, which he dictated before his death. They reveal to us a reality different from religious and intellectual life in the Arabian Peninsula. They also reveal to us the story of a prophet whose prophecy was undermined after people believed him in Taif. He was left in an endless confusion between abandoning his prophecy or confronting the new prophet. Between these two lies a long meaning and unique events. This is the story of Umayya ibn Abi al-Salt as he wanted it to be told.