Ibn Hishām (1) adds: It has reached me from Zayd ibn Aslam that when the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—appointed ʿAttāb ibn Asīd as governor of Mecca, he fixed for him a daily allowance of one dirham. ʿAttāb then stood and addressed the people, saying, “People! May Allah parch the liver of anyone who goes hungry for the sake of a single dirham. The Messenger of Allah (2) has allotted me one dirham each day, and I have no need of anyone else.”

Ibn Isḥāq says: The Prophet’s—peace and blessings be upon him—ʿumrah took place in Dhū al-Qaʿdah, and he reached Madinah during what remained of that month, or in the first days of Dhū al-Ḥijjah.

Ibn Hishām comments: According to Abū ʿAmr al-Madīnī, he arrived with six days left of Dhū al-Qaʿdah.

Ibn Isḥāq continues: The people performed the Pilgrimage that year as the Arabs had long performed it, and ʿAttāb ibn Asīd led the Muslims in the ḥajj. That was in the eighth year after the Hijrah.

He goes on: The people of Ṭāʾif clung to their idolatry and barricaded themselves in their town from Dhū al-Qaʿdah until Ramaḍān of the ninth year.

The Conversion of Kaʿb ibn Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā—may Allah be pleased with him. His father composed one of the seven Muʿallaqāt, so he was a poet, son of a poet. The poem Kaʿb recited to the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—begins: “Suʿād has departed.”

Ibn Isḥāq (3) relates: After the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—returned from Ṭāʾif, Bujayr ibn Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā wrote to his full brother Kaʿb ibn Zuhayr, telling him that the Messenger of Allah had executed in Mecca certain men who used to lampoon and harm him, and that the remaining poets of Quraysh—ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Zibʿarā and Hubayrah ibn Abī Wahb—had fled in every direction. “If you care for your life,” he wrote, “fly to the Messenger of Allah, for he does not kill anyone who comes to him repentant. If you refuse, then seek safety wherever you can on earth.”

Kaʿb had earlier composed (4):

Carry from me to Bujayr this word—
alas for you, alas! What have you said? Have you a plan?
Then make it plain, if you will not comply:
what path besides this would you have us walk?
Upon a creed no father of mine ever held,
nor will you find a father to hold it for you.
And if you refuse, I shall feel no regret,
nor, should you stumble, will I cry, “Woe to you!”