and that no levy be taken from them. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied, “There is no good in a religion that contains no bowing; but I grant you this: you will neither be conscripted for military service nor required to pay the tithe.”
Abū Dāwūd relates in his Sunan: al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ narrated to us; he said: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm narrated to us; he said: Ibrāhīm related to me from his father, from Wahb, who said: I asked Jābir about the matter of Thaqīf when they pledged allegiance. He said, “They stipulated to the Prophet ﷺ that no charity (zakāh) be taken from them and that they not be required to fight. Later I heard the Prophet ﷺ say: ‘Once they submit to Islam, they will pay charity and they will fight.’”
Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah transmitted a report of similar purport from ʿUrwah. He said: ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd embraced Islam and sought the Prophet’s ﷺ permission to return to his people. The Prophet ﷺ said, “I fear they will kill you.” ʿUrwah replied, “If they found me asleep, they would not even wake me up.”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then granted him permission. He returned to Ṭāʾif and arrived there toward evening. The people of Thaqīf greeted him, and he invited them to Islam and spoke to them sincerely. They accused him, disobeyed him, and subjected him to insults he had never expected from them. They left, and when the night drew toward its end and dawn broke, he stood on the roof of a room in his house, called the adhān, and recited the testimony of faith. A man from Thaqīf shot him with an arrow and killed him.
They relate that when news of his death reached the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he said, “ʿUrwah’s example is like that of the man mentioned in Sūrah Yā-Sīn: he called his people to Allah, and they killed him.”
After his death, a delegation of Thaqīf—some ten-odd of their nobles—set out. Among them was Kinānah ibn ʿAbd Yalīl, who was their leader that day, and ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ ibn Bishr, who was the youngest among them. They arrived in Madinah to seek a treaty with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ after seeing that Mecca had been conquered and that most of the Arabs had embraced Islam.