[Refutation of the Rāfidī’s allegation that Muāwiya was in Yemen on the day Mecca was conquered, assailing the Messenger of Allah]
The response is as follows:
As for his assertion:
“He was (1) in Yemen, assailing the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and wrote to his father, Sakhr ibn Harb, reproaching him for embracing Islam and sending him the lines of verse.”
This is manifestly false. Muāwiya was in Mecca, not Yemen, and his father “embraced Islam before the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—entered Mecca, at Marr al-Zahrān, on the night he encamped there. Al-Abbās said to him, ‘Abu Sufyān loves distinction.’ [The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—] (2) then said, ‘Whoever enters the house of Abu Sufyān will be safe; whoever enters the mosque will be safe; and whoever lays down his weapons will be safe.’” (3)
Abu Sufyān possessed evidence of prophethood through what Heraclius, the Roman emperor, had told him (4) when he travelled to Syria during the truce between the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and the Quraysh (5), as well as what he had learned (6) from Umayya ibn Abī al-Salt; but envy kept him from
(1) N, M, R, S, and H read: “that he was.”
(2) “The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—” is absent from N, M, W, and H.
(3) This report from al-Abbās—may Allah be pleased with him—is found in works of prophetic biography: *Sīrat Ibn Hishām*, 4/46; *Zād al-Maād*, 3/404; *Jawāmi al-Sīra*, p. 229; and *Imtā al-Asmā*, pp. 371–372. A hadith with the same meaning, narrated from Abu Hurayra—may Allah be pleased with him—is found in *Muslim*, 3/1407–1408 (Book of Jihad and Military Expeditions, Chapter on the Conquest of Mecca), and *al-Musnad* (al-Halabī ed.), 2/538. Ibn Hajar cited the hadith in *Fath al-Bārī*, 8/12, stating that Ahmad, Muslim, and al-Nasāī narrated it through Abd Allah ibn Rabāh, from Abu Hurayra. The hadith in *Muslim* begins: “O Abu Hurayra, summon the Ansār for me.” …
(4) N, M, R, S, and H read: “what he had reported.”
(5) The hadith concerning Abu Sufyān—may Allah be pleased with him—and Heraclius was narrated by al-Bukhārī from Ibn Abbās, from Abu Sufyān—may Allah be pleased with them both—in 1/4–6 (Book of the Beginning of Revelation, chapter beginning: “Abu al-Yamān al-Hakam ibn Nāfi narrated to us”). Al-Bukhārī also cited part of it in 1/15 (Book of Faith, chapter beginning: “Ibrāhīm ibn Hamza narrated to us”), 3/180 (Book of Testimonies, Chapter on One Who Is Commanded to Fulfil a Promise), and elsewhere.
(6) B alone reads: “they had.”