is nothing but sorcery worked by your companion!’ With that, they back-tracked and returned to the worst of their former disbelief, renewing their harshness toward the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—toward the Muslims, and toward his own kinsfolk, determined to carry out the boycott to which they had pledged themselves.

Those men from the clan of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib retorted:

‘Surely the ones most deserving to be called sorcerers and liars are other than us—what do you say? We know that the resolve you have shown in cutting us off is closer to idolatry and witchcraft than anything we stand for. Had you not united upon sorcery, your document would never have been ruined while still in your hands; Allah blotted out every mention of His name from it, yet left in place the wrongdoing it contained. So tell us—are we the sorcerers, or are you?’

At that, a number of men from the descendants of ʿAbd Manāf and of Quṣayy, together with several nobles of Quraysh whose mothers belonged to Banū Hāshim—among them Abū al-Bukhturī and al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdī—declared