to my uncle—an honored man—and knocked at his door. “Who is it?” he asked. “The son of al-Khattab,” I said, “and I have left your religion.” “Do no such thing,” he replied, then stepped inside and slammed the door in my face.

“That will not do,” I thought. I went to one of the great men of Quraysh, called out to him, and when he appeared I repeated to him what I had told my uncle. He answered me exactly as my uncle had, went back in, and barred the door behind him. I said to myself, “This is nothing; the Muslims are being beaten while I am not.”

A man said to me, “Would you like people to know about your Islam?” “Yes,” I answered. He said, “When the people sit in the Ḥijr (the Stone Enclosure by the Kaʿbah), go to So-and-so”—naming a man who never kept a secret—“and tell him quietly, ‘I have left your religion,’ for he can scarcely keep anything to himself.”

I went, and when the people had gathered in the Ḥijr I said to him privately, “I have left your religion.” “Have you really?” he exclaimed. “Yes,” I said. At once he shouted at the top of his lungs, “The son of al-Khattab has abandoned the faith!” They rushed at me, and I kept striking them while they struck me, until a great crowd surrounded me.

My uncle asked, “What is this commotion?” They said, “ʿUmar has left the faith.” He mounted the Ḥijr, waved the sleeve of his cloak and declared, “Behold, I have granted my sister’s son safe-conduct.” They drew back from me, yet whenever I wished to see a Muslim beat or be beaten I could see it. I said, “This is nothing until it reaches me as well.” So I went to my uncle and said, “I return your protection.” I went on striking and being struck until Allah exalted Islam.

It is related, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās through a weak chain, that he said: I asked ʿUmar, “Why were you given the title al-Farūq?” He replied: “Three days after Hamzah embraced Islam I went out to the mosque. Abū Jahl hastened to the Prophet ﷺ and reviled him. When Hamzah was told, he took up his bow and came to the mosque, to the circle of Quraysh where Abū Jahl was sitting. He leaned on his bow facing Abū Jahl and looked at him; Abū Jahl, seeing the anger in his face, said, ‘What is the matter with you, Abū ʿUmārah?’ Hamzah raised the bow and struck him on both temples, splitting them…"