Chapter: The First Stirring of Faith among the Anṣār

Ibn Isḥāq said:
When Allah willed to make His religion manifest, to honor His Prophet, and to fulfill the promise He had given him, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ set out during the pilgrimage season in which he later met the small company of Anṣār. As he did every season, he presented himself to the tribes of the Arabs. While he was at al-‘Aqabah he encountered a party from the Khazraj for whom Allah intended good.

ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatādah told me, on the authority of some elders of his clan, that they said:
When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ met them he asked, “Who are you?”
They replied, “A handful of the Khazraj.”
He said, “Are you the allies of the Jews?”
They answered, “Yes.”
He said, “Will you not sit so that I may speak with you?”
They said, “Certainly.” They sat with him, whereupon he invited them to Allah, set forth Islam before them, and recited the Qur’an to them.

He (ʿĀṣim) said:
Among the ways Allah had prepared them for Islam was that the Jews lived among them in their land. The Jews possessed scripture and knowledge, whereas the Khazraj were idolaters, worshipers of images whom the Jews had formerly overrun in their own territory. Whenever a dispute arose between the two sides the Jews would say, “The time of a Prophet who is to be sent is now upon us; we shall follow him and, together with him, slaughter you as ʿĀd and Iram were slaughtered.”

So, when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ addressed those men and called them to Allah, some of them said to one another, “O people, by Allah, you know that this is the Prophet with whom the Jews have been threatening you—do not let them reach him before you do.” They responded to his call, believed him, and accepted what he presented of Islam.

They said to him, “We have left our people, and there is no tribe among them torn by enmity and evil like theirs. Perhaps Allah will bring them together through you. We shall return to them, invite them to your cause, and present to them what we have accepted of this religion. If Allah gathers them around you, no man will be more honored than you.” They then departed for their homeland as believers who had affirmed his truthfulness.

Ibn Isḥāq said: According to what has reached me, they were six men, all of them from the Khazraj: Abū Umāmah Asʿad ibn Zurārah ibn ʿUdās ibn ʿUbayd ibn Thaʿlabah ibn Ghanm ibn Mālik ibn al-Najjār; ʿAwf ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Rifāʿah ibn Sawād ibn Mālik ibn Ghanm ibn Mālik ibn al-Najjār—better known as the son of ʿAfrāʾ—both of them of the Najjār clan; Rāfiʿ ibn Mālik ibn al-ʿAjlān ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir ibn Zurayq of the Zurayq clan; and Quṭbah ibn ʿĀmir ibn Ḥadīdah ibn ʿAmr ibn Ghanm ibn Sawād ibn Ghanm ibn Kaʿb ibn Salamah ibn Saʿd ibn ʿAlī ibn Asad ibn Sāridah ibn Tazīd ibn Jusham ibn al-Khazraj of the Salamah branch, from the Banū Sawād.