the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—will say to you, “May Allah forgive you. Go back, retract your words, declare yourself mistaken, and say: ‘I did have an excuse,’ so that the Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him—may seek forgiveness for you along with those for whom he prayed when they came to him presenting their excuses.”

He was on the verge of doing so, but Allah, Exalted is He, rescued him and granted him that magnificent distinction which is recited in the Book of Allah until the Day of Resurrection.

He then asked his people, “Has anyone acted as I have?” They replied, “Yes—Hilāl ibn Umayyah and Murārah ibn al-Rabīʿ. They said what you said, and they were told what you were told.”

He continues: “So they mentioned to me two righteous men who had fought at Badr, and in them I found a model to follow.”

At times Allah appoints for a person an example that moves him to abandon wrongdoing through imitation and aspiration.

Thus, when those two men—both among Allah’s finest servants from the veterans of Badr—were mentioned to him, he said, “I have an example in them,” and he went on his way; that is, he did not return to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, then commanded the people to boycott them and not to speak to them.

So the Muslims shunned them, and thereafter they walked about as though bereft of reason, bewildered; the earth itself seemed alien, no longer the land they had known. Whenever they offered the greeting of peace, no one answered, and if they met someone, he would not initiate the greeting. Even the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him, the most courteous of all mankind—did not give them his usual greeting.

Kaʿb says: “I would attend and greet the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, yet I could not tell whether he moved his lips to return my salām or not.”

This was with the Messenger himself—peace and blessings be upon him—so what do you think a man must feel when he is boycotted in this