Musʿab then went to the house of Asʿad ibn Zurārah and stayed with him, calling people to Islam. He continued until no household of the Anṣār remained without Muslim men and women—save the houses of Banū Umayyah ibn Zayd, the clans of Khaṭmah, Wāʾil, and Wāqif. These formed the sub-tribe known as Aws Allāh, descendants of Aws ibn Ḥārithah. Their reluctance was due to the presence among them of Abū Qays ibn al-Aslat, whose personal name was Ṣayfi—[al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār says his name was al-Ḥārith, others say ʿUbaydullāh; his father al-Aslat was ʿĀmir ibn Jusham ibn Wāʾil ibn Zayd ibn Qays ibn ʿĀmir ibn Murrah ibn Mālik ibn al-Aws, and Ibn al-Kalbī records the same lineage]. He was their poet-leader, whose words they listened to and obeyed, and he held them back from Islam until after the Battle of the Trench.

I say: Ibn Isḥāq has transmitted for Abū Qays ibn al-Aslat several devout and beautiful poems, comparable to the verse of Umayya ibn Abī al-Ṣalt al-Thaqafī.

Ibn Isḥāq has already related: When the cause of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, spread among the Arabs and reached distant lands, he was spoken of in Madinah. No tribe among the Arabs was better informed about him when he was first mentioned than this branch of the Aws and the Khazraj, because of what they had long heard from the Jewish rabbis. When news of him reached Madinah and people discussed the disagreement regarding him among Quraysh, Abū Qays ibn al-Aslat of Banū Wāqif—who loved Quraysh and was linked to them by marriage, for he was married to Arnab bint Asad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn Quṣayy and would stay with them for years because of his wife—composed a poem. In it he magnified the sanctity of the Sacred Precinct, forbade Quraysh from warfare therein, praised their excellence and forbearance, reminded them of Allah’s favor in turning back the Elephant and its stratagem, and urged them to desist from harming the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him:

(from a poem in the Ṭawīl meter)

O rider, should the chance arise, then convey
an urgent message from me to Luʾayy son of Ghālib.

A word from a man whom your discord has distressed—
from afar he grieves, worn down by that estrangement.