until the lines finally broke apart, and Jaʿfar—right where the tangled ranks had met—was left lying motionless.
The shining moon grew dim at his loss; the very sun was eclipsed and all but sank from sight.
A noble chieftain, his stature rose from Hāshim—an unbowed, towering branch whose honor never wavers.
Through such men Allah shielded His servants; upon them the Revealed Book came down.
They surpassed all other clans in might and generosity, and their forbearance envelops whoever behaves in ignorance.
They never squander their bounty on foolishness, and their spokesman is known to render judgments founded on truth.
Bright-faced are they; the palms of their hands you see wet with giving whenever drought-struck clouds make their excuses.
By their guidance Allah was pleased with His creation, and through their earnest striving the commissioned Prophet was granted victory.

***
In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

The letter the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) dispatched to the rulers of distant realms, together with his other epistles, inviting them to Allah—Exalted is He—and calling them to enter Islām (1).

Al-Wāqidī (2) related that this took place at the end of the sixth year, in Dhū al-Ḥijjah, after the ʿUmrah of al-Ḥudaybiyah.
Al-Bayhaqī (3) inserted this section here, after the expedition of Muʾtah—and Allah knows best. There is, however, no disagreement that its beginning was prior to the Conquest of Mecca and after al-Ḥudaybiyah; for Abū Sufyān said to Heraclius, when the latter asked him, “Does he ever break a treaty?”
“No,” he replied, “though we are in a truce with him and we do not know what he will do within it.”
In another wording recorded by al-Bukhārī (4): “That occurred during the truce in which Abū Sufyān had concluded a pact (5) with the Messenger of Allah.”