Al-ʿAbbās said: ʿUmar then dashed off toward the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, while I spurred the mule on and reached him ahead of ʿUmar—just as even a sluggish mount can outstrip a sluggish man. I dismounted, entered upon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and ʿUmar entered after me. ʿUmar exclaimed, “O Messenger of Allah, here is Abū Sufyān; Allah has delivered him to us without pact or covenant. Allow me to strike off his neck!”

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, I have granted him protection.” I then sat beside the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, took hold of Abū Sufyān’s head, and said, “By Allah, no one shall speak to him this night but me.” When ʿUmar persisted in the matter, I said, “Easy there, O ʿUmar! By Allah, had he been a man of Banū ʿAdiyy ibn Kaʿb you would not have said that; but you know he is a man of Banū ʿAbd Manāf.”

ʿUmar replied, “Take it easy, O ʿAbbās. By Allah, your acceptance of Islam on the day you embraced it was dearer to me than if al-Khaṭṭāb himself had embraced Islam—and only because I knew that your Islam was dearer to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ than the Islam of al-Khaṭṭāb, had he accepted it.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then said, “Take him, ʿAbbās, to your quarters, and in the morning bring him to me.”

So I took him to my lodging, and he spent the night with me. At daybreak I brought him to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ saw him, he said, “Woe to you, Abū Sufyān! Has the time not come for you to realize that there is no god but Allah?”

He replied, “May my father and mother be your ransom—how forbearing, generous, and kind you are! By Allah, I thought that if there were any deity besides Allah it would have helped me in some way after this.”

The Prophet said, “Woe to you, Abū Sufyān! Has the time not come for you to know that I am the Messenger of Allah?”

He answered, “May my father and mother be your ransom—how forbearing, generous, and kind you are! As for this matter, by Allah, there is still something in my heart about it.”

I said to him, “Woe to you! Submit to Allah and testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah before your neck is struck.” He then uttered the testimony of truth and accepted Islam.

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, Abū Sufyān is a man who loves distinction, so grant him something.” He replied, “Yes. Whoever enters the house of Abū Sufyān is safe.” [ʿUrwah adds: “And whoever enters the house of Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām is safe”—and so also reported Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah from al-Zuhrī.] “Whoever closes his door is safe, and whoever enters the Mosque is safe.”

When Abū Sufyān turned to leave, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “ʿAbbās, detain him at the narrow pass of the valley by the projecting rock so that the armies of Allah may march past him and he can behold them.”

[Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, on the authority of al-Zuhrī, relates that Abū Sufyān, Budayl, and Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām were standing with al-ʿAbbās at the mountain’s side. He further reports that when Saʿd said to Abū Sufyān, “Today is the day of slaughter; today the sanctuary will be violated,” Abū Sufyān complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. The Prophet thereupon removed Saʿd from the Anṣār’s banner and gave it to al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām. Al-Zubayr entered Mecca from the upper side and planted the banner at al-Ḥajūn, while Khālid entered from the lower side. Banū Bakr and Hudhayl confronted him; he killed twenty men of Banū Bakr and three or four of Hudhayl. They fled, and were cut down at al-Ḥazwarah until the killings reached the gate of the Mosque.]

Al-ʿAbbās (1) said: I then went out with Abū Sufyān and kept him at the narrow pass of the valley where the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had ordered me