gentle, rightly guided, just, never reckless—
loyal to a Lord who is never unaware of him.
By Allah, were it not that I might bring a stigma
that would dog our elders in every gathering,
a serious reproach, we would have followed him in every age,
in full earnestness, not in idle jest.
They know for certain that our son is no liar in our sight
and pays no heed to the chatter of impostors.
Thus Aḥmad has appeared among us, of a lineage so deep
that every swaggering rival falls short of his stature.
I have bent my very self to shield and protect him;
I have defended him with my shoulders and my chest.
May Allah requite ʿAbd Shams and Nawfal on our behalf
with an immediate, not a deferred, punishment for their evil.
When mention of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ spread among the Arabs, it reached Yathrib, and no Arab tribe—before or after they heard of him—knew more about his affair than the Aws and the Khazraj. This was because of what they used to hear from the rabbis, their Jewish allies living among them.
Abū Qays ibn al-Aslat was fond of Quraysh. He was linked to them by marriage: his wife was Aranab bint Asad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, and he would spend years in Mecca with her. He then composed:
O rider, should the chance arise, convey
my tightly sealed message to Luʾayy ibn Ghalib.
It is the word of a man alarmed by your estrangement—
troubled by distance, worn out with grief.
I seek Allah’s refuge for you from the evil you devise,
from your mutual aggression, from the scorpion’s stealthy sting.
Whenever you let it loose, you let it loose in disgrace—
a ghoul that devours both those far away and those near.
Establish for us a ḥanīf (upright monotheistic) religion, for you are
our final hope; by your forelocks we would find guidance.
So rise, pray to your Lord, and wipe yourselves
against the pillars of this House set between the rugged hills.
With you there is a confirmed trial from Him: the day of Abū Yaksum,
the leader of the columns who marched with the elephant.
When the Lord of the Throne sent you His help, He drove them back—
the Sovereign’s hosts flinging them between dust and stones.
They turned and fled in haste; no battalion returned
home to its people, save scattered and broken bands.