spill your own blood, nor the blood of your fellow Muslims. Consider where your course will end; do not be hasty. Be patient until the righteous find relief and people are delivered from the wicked.

A lengthy exchange then passed between them—more than I can recall—and Abū ʿAbd Allāh kept arguing this point. Some of them protested, “We fear for our children: if this view prevails, they will know nothing else, and Islam will be erased and forgotten.”

Abū ʿAbd Allāh answered, “Never! Allah is the One who gives victory to His religion; this affair has a Lord who will uphold it, and Islam is mighty and impregnable.”

They departed from Abū ʿAbd Allāh’s house. He agreed to none of what they had resolved, beyond forbidding them from it and reminding them of the duty of hearing and obeying the ruler until Allah brings relief to the community. They did not accept his advice.

When they left, some of them said to me, “Come with us to the house of So-and-so”—they named him—“so that we can set a time with him for something we intend.”

I told my father about this, and he said, “Do not go; find an excuse …”