He goes on to say, “While I was walking one day through the markets of Madinah, and the people’s estrangement had dragged on, I climbed over the wall of Abu Qatadah’s orchard.” In other words, he entered it from above the wall rather than through the gate, as though the gate were closed— and Allah knows best.

He then says, “I greeted him with salam, but—by Allah—he did not return my greeting.” Now, Abu Qatadah was his cousin and the dearest of people to him, yet he still gave no reply. The man was already shunned and cast out: no one spoke to him, no one greeted him, no one returned his salam—yet even his own cousin Abu Qatadah showed him no mercy.

All of this was in obedience to Allah and His Messenger, for the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—feared no blame for the sake of Allah and granted no special favors in the religion of Allah, even to the closest of kin. So Kaʿb said to him, “I adjure you by Allah: do you know that I love Allah and His Messenger?” But he gave no answer.

Twice he implored him—asking whether he knew that he loved Allah and His Messenger—and Abu Qatadah did in fact know that Kaʿb ibn Mālik loved Allah and His Messenger. When Kaʿb appealed to him a third time, saying, “I adjure you by Allah: do you know that I love Allah and His Messenger?” Abu Qatadah replied, “Allah and His Messenger know best.”

Still he would not converse with him; he said neither “Yes” nor “No.”

Kaʿb relates, “So my eyes overflowed”—that is, he wept, may Allah be pleased with him—because a man who was his cousin and the dearest of people to him would not speak to him despite such an earnest plea.

Yet this, too, was a matter of worship, for his very words, “I adjure you by Allah: do you know that I love…"