That was his foremost concern—he, may Allah be pleased with him, wanted a guarantee that Allah would pardon him, fearing that his former hostility to the religion might bar him from forgiveness. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said to him, “Do you not realize that Islam wipes out everything that came before it, that the hijrah (emigration) wipes out everything that came before it, and that the Hajj wipes out everything that came before it?”

These are three decisive matters. As for Islam, it eradicates whatever preceded it, as stated plainly in the Noble Book: “Say to those who disbelieve: if they desist, what is past will be forgiven them; but if they persist, the precedent of the former peoples has already passed” (Qur’an 8:38).

With hijrah, when a person leaves his homeland—one steeped in disbelief—and migrates for Allah’s sake, that act erases all that went before it. As for Hajj, it expunges prior sins because the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Whoever performs Hajj and refrains from obscene speech and wrongdoing will return from his sins as pure as the day his mother bore him.”

So ʿAmr pledged his allegiance and grew to love the Prophet with an intense love; the Messenger became the dearest of all people to him. Out of reverence, he could not fix his gaze upon him. Glory be to the One who turns hearts: only yesterday ʿAmr had loathed him so utterly that he wished for the chance to kill him, yet now he could not even lift his eyes toward him in awe, nor could he describe him, for he could not encompass his qualities.