“…among Khuzaʿah, along this shoreline and down in the bottom of the valley.”
At that, Abū Sufyān went over to the place where his mount had knelt, took some of its droppings, crumbled them in his hand, and found date-pits inside.
He exclaimed, “By God, Budayl has certainly been to Muḥammad!”
Abū Sufyān then continued on until he reached the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in Madinah. First he entered the house of his daughter, Umm Ḥabībah. When he moved to sit on the Prophet’s bedding, she folded it up.
He said, “My daughter, I do not know whether you think me too good for this bedding or the bedding too good for me.”
She answered, “It is the bedding of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and you are an idolatrous man, impure; I did not like you to sit upon his bedding.”
He replied, “My daughter, by Allah, something evil has befallen you since you parted from me.”
He then went out and came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and spoke to him, but the Prophet gave him no reply. Next he went to Abū Bakr and asked him to intercede with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, but Abū Bakr said, “I will not do it.”
He then came to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, who said, “Am I to plead for you with the Messenger of Allah?! By Allah, if I possessed nothing with which to fight you except tiny ants, I would fight you with them!”
Leaving him, Abū Sufyān entered upon ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, who was sitting with Fāṭimah, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and with her was al-Ḥasan, a little boy toddling in front of her.
Abū Sufyān said, “ʿAlī, you are the one most closely related to me, the nearest of them by blood. I have come with a need; do not let me return disappointed. Intercede for me with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.”
ʿAlī answered, “Woe to you, Abū Sufyān! By Allah, the Messenger of Allah has resolved upon a matter and we are unable to speak to him about it.”
Abū Sufyān then turned to Fāṭimah and said, “Daughter of Muḥammad, would you order this little son of yours to grant protection to the people, so that he might become the chief of the Arabs for all time?”
She replied, “By Allah, my son has not reached the age where he can grant protection, and no one can grant protection against the Prophet ﷺ.”
He said, “Abū al-Ḥasan, I see the situation has become difficult for me; give me some advice.”
ʿAlī said, “By Allah, I know nothing that will benefit you. Yet you are the chief of Banū Kinānah: stand up and declare a guarantee of safety for the people, then return to your land.”
Abū Sufyān asked, “Do you think that will help me at all?”
ʿAlī replied, “No, by Allah, I do not think so—but I know of nothing else for you.”
So Abū Sufyān went into the mosque and proclaimed, “People! I hereby grant safety among the people.” Then he mounted his camel and departed.
When he reached Quraysh they said, “What news do you bring?”
He answered, “I went to Muḥammad and spoke to him, but by Allah he gave me no reply. I then went to Ibn Abī Quḥāfah and found no good in him. I went to ʿUmar and found him the most hostile of enemies. Then I went to ʿAlī and found him the kindest of them; he advised me to do something which I have done. By Allah, I do not know whether it will profit us or not.”
They asked, “What did he tell you to do?”
He said, “He told me to declare protection among the people, so I did.”
They asked, “Did Muḥammad endorse that?”
He replied, “No.”
They said, “Woe to you! The man has done no more than toy with you. What benefit will your declaration bring us?”
He answered, “By Allah, I found nothing else to do.”
A point noted by al-Suhaylī (d. 581 AH): he discussed Fāṭimah’s statement in this ḥadīth—‘No one grants protection against the Messenger of Allah ﷺ’—alongside the ḥadīth, ‘The least of the Muslims may grant protection on their behalf.’ He reconciled them by saying that the ḥadīth refers to granting safety to one individual or a small group, whereas Fāṭimah’s words concern granting safety to an enemy whom the Imām intends to attack; that is not permissible.
Sahnūn (d. 240 AH) and Ibn al-Mājishūn (d. 259 AH) used to say that a woman’s grant of safety is subject to the Imām’s approval, based on the Prophet’s statement