Delegations from Yemen

The Delegation of Tujīb
Al-Wāqidī relates that they arrived in the ninth year AH and that they numbered thirteen men. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ bestowed on them a gift more generous than that given to any other delegation. He asked a youth among them, “What is your need?” The boy replied, “O Messenger of Allah, supplicate to Allah to forgive me, have mercy on me, and place my wealth in my heart.” The Prophet ﷺ prayed, “O Allah, forgive him, have mercy upon him, and place his richness in his heart.” Thereafter the lad became one of the most ascetic of people.

The Delegation of Khawlān
Al-Wāqidī reports that they were ten in number and that they arrived in Shaʿbān of the tenth year AH. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked them about their idol, known as ʿAmm Anas. They said, “We have been given something better in its stead, and once we return we shall demolish it.” They learned the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and when they went back they tore the idol down, making lawful what Allah has made lawful and unlawful what Allah has made unlawful.

The Delegation of Juʿfī
Al-Wāqidī also records that this tribe used to forbid eating the heart. When their delegation embraced Islam, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ ordered them to eat a heart; he had one roasted, handed it to their leader, and said, “Your faith will not be complete until you eat it.” The man took it—his hand trembling—and ate it, saying:

I ate the heart although I loathed the deed,
And my fingers shook the moment they touched it.

Section: The Arrival of al-Azd at the Messenger of Allah ﷺ
Abū Nuʿaym in his Maʿrifat al-Ṣaḥābah, and the ḥāfiẓ Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī, both transmit—on the authority of Aḥmad ibn