what offends us. If you think you can stop him on our behalf, then please do so.”

He (ʿAqīl) said:
“So he said to me, ‘Aqīl, go and fetch your cousin.’

“I brought him out of a kibs (one of the small huts) in the Ravine of Abū Ṭālib, and he walked with me until we reached Abū Ṭālib.

“Abū Ṭālib said to him, ‘My nephew, by Allah, I have only ever known you to be obedient to me. Yet your people have come to me claiming that you visit them in their Kaʿbah and in their gatherings and make them hear what offends them. If you are able, then refrain from that.’

“He lifted his gaze toward the sky and said, ‘By Allah, I am no more able to abandon what I have been sent with than any one of you is able to kindle from this sun a flame of fire.’

“Abū Ṭālib replied, ‘By Allah, he has never told a lie. Go back, then, in good faith.’”

Al-Bukhārī recorded this in his History, as did Abū Zurʿah in the Dalāʾil; Ibn Isḥāq transmitted it with wording close to this, saying:

“I brought him out of a ḥifsh (a small house).”

He also reported: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, thought that his uncle had changed his stance, that he would abandon and surrender him, and that he no longer had the strength to stand by him. He therefore said:

‘Uncle, were the sun placed in my right hand and the moon in my left, I would not abandon this cause until Allah makes it prevail or I perish pursuing it.’”

In the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections it is narrated from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ṣāmit, who said: “Abū Dharr said: …”