“By Allah, if you allow them to press on with this business, you will find them even quicker than you to pursue it!”
Al-Muṭʿim replied, “Woe to you—what am I to do? I am only one man.”
“I have found you a second,” Hishām said.
“Who is he?”
“I am.”
“Then find us a third.”
“I have done so.”
“Who?”
“Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah.”
“Find us a fourth.”
Hishām went to Abū al-Bukhtarī ibn Hishām and repeated to him what he had said to al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy.
Abū al-Bukhtarī asked, “Is there anyone who will help with this?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah, al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy, and I am with you.”
“Then find us a fifth.”
He went to Zamʿah ibn al-Aswad ibn al-Muṭṭalib ibn Asad, spoke to him, and reminded him of the ties of kinship and the rights they entailed.
Zamʿah said, “Is anyone else committed to what you are calling me to?”
“Yes,” he replied, and he named the men.
They set a rendezvous at Khaṭm al-Ḥajūn, in the upper part of Mecca, that night. There they gathered, resolved upon their course, and pledged to rise up against the document until they tore it to pieces.
Zuhayr said, “I shall begin and be the first to speak.”
At daybreak they went to their usual assembly-places, and Zuhayr ibn Abī Umayyah, wrapped in a cloak, came forth, circumambulated the Kaʿbah seven times, then faced the people and proclaimed:
“People of Mecca! Shall we eat food and wear clothes while the sons of Hāshim are perishing—no one buys from them and they buy from no one? By Allah, I will not sit down until this oppressive, severing document is torn apart!”
Abū Jahl, who was standing in another part of the Mosque, retorted, “By Allah, it shall not be torn.”
Zamʿah ibn al-Aswad replied, “By Allah, you are the liar! We never approved of its writing in the first place.”
Abū al-Bukhtarī said, “Zamʿah speaks the truth. We do not approve of what is written in it, nor do we acknowledge it.”
Al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy added, “You both speak the truth, and whoever says otherwise is lying. We repudiate the document before Allah and everything written in it.”
Hishām ibn ʿAmr said something similar.
Abū Jahl exclaimed, “This is a matter that was settled in the night, hatched elsewhere!”
Abū Ṭālib was sitting in another corner of the Mosque. Al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy stood up to tear the document, only to find that termites had eaten it, leaving nothing but the words, “In Your Name, O Allah.” The scribe who had written the document was Manṣūr ibn ʿIkrimah, and, so they claim, his hand was later paralyzed.
Ibn Hishām relates that some scholars report: the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said to Abū Ṭālib, “Uncle, Allah has set termites upon the document of the Quraysh; they left no Name of Allah without preserving it, and they erased from it injustice, the severing of kinship, and falsehood.”
Abū Ṭālib asked, “Did your Lord tell you this?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“By Allah,” Abū Ṭālib said, “no one shall reach you.”
He then went out to the Quraysh and announced, “People of Quraysh, my nephew has told me such-and-such. Produce your document. If it is as he says, give up your boycott of us and withdraw from it; but if he is lying, I will hand him over to you.”
They said, “We agree.” They bound themselves to that, examined the parchment, and found it exactly as the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, had described. This only increased their rancor, and it was then that the group from Quraysh took the action they did to invalidate the document.