The disbelievers of Quraysh realized this when they learned that the emigrants had been received with honour and esteem and granted religious freedom, allowing them to worship Allah, their Lord, without fear or concealment. They began to fear that Islam, with its gracious teachings, might—if left alone—find a path into Africa, reach the Africans’ good hearts and open minds, and exert its influence upon them. They would then gain the honour of taking the initiative in embracing Islam, while the people of Mecca missed that honour.

They began deliberating and weighing their options to decide what to do. While they were thus occupied, they were overtaken by that crushing defeat at Badr, on the day when Allah honoured Islam and the Muslims and humbled polytheism and the polytheists. Their concern about the emigrants intensified, and they finally decided to send a delegation charged with trying to bring them back to Mecca—if they could. Heading their delegation was one of the shrewdest men among the Arabs and one of their most accomplished masters of captivating eloquence: ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ās, who needs no introduction.

The delegation arrived in Abyssinia and became guests of the Negus, bringing with them the gifts most prized by the kings of Abyssinia, according to the scholars of the Prophet’s biography. Immediately upon arrival, they presented gifts to the dignitaries, hoping to enlist their help in influencing the Negus to hand over the emigrants. They imagined that they had prepared the ground and paved the way—if one may put it so. Yet the negotiations produced the opposite result. They had tried to persuade the Negus to surrender the emigrants before hearing what they had to say, merely on the strength of their own embellished account. The Negus, however, would not agree to this. Instead, he summoned the emigrants so that he could hear their account, just as he had heard the others. This was the sound approach required by reason and logic. Indeed, given what we know of the Negus, no other stance could have been expected of him: he was the king under whose protection no one was wronged, as stated by the Messenger of