as a messenger to you, so command me as you wish: if you like, I will cause the two Akhshab mountains to collapse upon them.’ The Prophet ﷺ replied, ‘No. Rather, I hope that Allah will bring forth from their descendants people who will worship Allah alone, without associating anything with Him.’ Agreed upon.

The two Akhshab mountains are the peaks that surround Mecca; al-akhshab is a term for a rugged, solid mountain.

[Explanation]

The author, Imam al-Nawawi—may Allah have mercy on him—opens his Riyad al-Salihin with the chapter entitled “Pardon and Turning Away from the Ignorant,” after which he cites the verses we discussed earlier in previous sections.

He then mentions the hadith of ʿAʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her), in which she asked the Prophet ﷺ, “Has any day been more trying for you than the Day of Uhud?”—for the Day of Uhud was indeed severe for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

The Day of Uhud was a battle the Prophet ﷺ fought when Quraysh rallied to attack him in retaliation for the deaths of their chiefs at Badr; at Badr—in the second year after the Hijrah—many of their nobles and men of stature had been killed.

In Shawwal of the following year, the third year after the Hijrah, Quraysh gathered once more and marched on Medina to fight the Prophet ﷺ. When the Prophet ﷺ learned of their approach