in ways they had never before been able to reach him or gain power over him.

As al-Bayhaqī has related (1) from al-Ḥākim, through al-Aṣamm: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣaghānī (2) told us, Yūsuf ibn Bahlūl told us, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs told us, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq told us—from someone who reported to him—from ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar, who said:

When Abū Ṭālib died, a foolish man from the fools of Quraysh accosted the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and threw dust over him. He returned home, and one of his daughters came, wiping the dust from his face while weeping. He kept saying:

“My little daughter, do not weep (3); for Allah will protect your father.”

And between those words he added:

“Quraysh never touched anything I disliked until Abū Ṭālib died.” (4)

Ziyād al-Bakkāʾī has also narrated this from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, as a mursal report. Allah knows best.

Al-Bayhaqī (5) likewise transmitted—from al-Ḥākim and others (6)—through al-Aṣamm, from Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār, from Yūnus ibn Bukayr, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Quraysh remained cowed (7) until Abū Ṭālib died.”

He then related it (8) from al-Ḥākim, through al-Aṣamm, from ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn: ʿUqbah al-Majdar told us, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah, that the Prophet ﷺ said:

“Quraysh remained cowed until Abū Ṭālib passed away.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī has also transmitted—by way of a chain (9)—from Thaʿlabah ibn Ṣuʿayr and Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām that they said:

When Abū Ṭālib and Khadījah died—and there were five days between the two events (10)—two calamities converged upon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He stayed in his house and went out only rarely, and Quraysh inflicted upon him what they had never been able, nor even hoped, to inflict before. News of this reached Abū Lahab, so he came to him and said: