The Firsts (Sahaba Stories) | The Forerunners of Islam
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khawla Bint Hakim & Uthman Ibn Madhun: The Righteous Couple | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Al-Shifa bint Abdullah (ra): The Healer and Scholar | The Firsts Shorts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Shurahbil Ibn Hasana (ra): The Scribe and Commander | The Firsts Shorts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khalid ibn al-Walid (ra): The Legendary Military General | The Firsts
126
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Amr ibn al-As (ra): His Wicked Father and “Better” Brother | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid (ra): From False Prophet to Shaheed | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Zayd ibn al-Khattab (ra): The Quiet Brother of Omar (ra) | The Firsts
Abu Sufyan ibn Harb (ra): Forgiving the Enemy | The Firsts
For two decades he was a chief antagonist of the Prophet ﷺ, only to be forgiven and given a position of leadership for the sake of the greater cause.
The Firsts is a weekly video series that chronicles the lives of the Sahaba (the companions of the Prophet ﷺ) during and after the time of the Prophet ﷺ.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. A'udhu billahi minash shaitanir rajeem. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, wa la'udhu billahi minash shaitanir rajeem. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Welcome back to the first. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept all of your ibadah in Ramadan. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow all of our deeds that we perform to be accepted. Forgive us for our shortcomings in Ramadan and after Ramadan. Allahumma ameen. So tonight we're going to be looking into probably one of the most complex companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the entire seerah. Because when you think of him, you always think of him on the opposing side of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And I have to admit that I was once going to give a khutbah a few years ago. There was someone who was a high profile convert. This was maybe six, seven years ago. And I was thinking to myself, we should name the khutbah, the curious case of Abu Sufyan. Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam treats this man in such a way that is so unfathomable when you consider the profile of Abu Sufyan and his enmity towards the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam for two decades. From the very beginning, all the way until Fatih Mecca. He's not just one enemy of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He's always the ringleader. He's always there amongst those that are conspiring against the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And it would not be an exaggeration to say that this might have been the most hated man to the Muslims. If you think about the cumulative seerah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
When you said the name of Abu Sufyan in Medina, it evoked a certain sentiment. Because this was the man that was always organizing against the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And so subhanAllah, as we talk about him, you don't just come to appreciate the end of the story. You come to appreciate the mindset of a man who somehow is won over to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And who somehow the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam can tolerate despite everything that he's done against Islam. And his history is rich and believe it or not, subhanAllah, this is actually one of the harder lectures to pack into one hour. Because of the depth of the story of this man, Abu Sufyan radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. So his name, first and foremost, is Sakhar ibn Harb ibn Umayyah ibn Abdi Shams. So Sakhar is his actual name, which means rock, right, Sakhar ibn Harb. The rock, the son of war, that would be the translation of his name. And subhanAllah, how fitting of a name it actually is to him. His name Abu Sufyan is actually a kunya that his father supposedly had. So there's debate about where he got the name Abu Sufyan from, because he doesn't actually have a name or a son named Sufyan, right. So either his father was named Abu Sufyan and he wanted to carry the kunya, the nickname of his father, or Sufyan, which means swiftness, it could mean like a storm, represents a certain character in battle, right, someone who moves like a storm. Or it was a characteristic that Abu Sufyan wanted to be named after. So his name is Sakhar ibn Harb. He has two nicknames, Abu Sufyan, which is his most famous nickname, and then the other kunya is the one that is actually after his oldest son, which is Abu Hamdala. So his actual technical name is Abu Hamdala, after his oldest son. As I said, the most hated man to the Muslims, and subhanAllah, when you think about the
hadith of the Prophet ﷺ about the man who killed 99 people from Bani Israel and then killed 100 and still found forgiveness from Allah, this is probably the only man, or one of the only people in the seerah that you can pinpoint and say, he actually killed 100 Muslims. And so this hadith actually has to apply to him, and he didn't just kill any 99 or 100 people, he killed 100 of the best people on the face of the earth, the best of the best generation of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ. Yet somehow Allah will spare him until the very end and until he has an opportunity to convert to Islam. So he obviously comes from a very powerful family, and his reputation in Islam of being a warlord is inherited from his father. So his father, Harb, whose name is war, was actually the leader of Kinana in what's known as Harb al-Fujar, the early wars of the days of ignorance, the tribalistic wars, his father was the main leader of Quraysh, and his father is known for being a warlord. And his father is also sort of looked at amongst the generation before him as the successor to Abdul Muttalib in terms of being the leader of Mecca. So Abu Sufyan is inheriting nobility, is inheriting power, he's inheriting war, he's inheriting the responsibility of one of the three arch-tribes of Mecca, Banu Abd al-Shams, he is being groomed to be the leader, and he's literally a copy of his father. Now because his father dies before Islam, it's harder to get much information about him, but it seems to be that everything about Abu Sufyan that you learn is true of his father as well. And he comes from this rich, noble, powerful tribe. Banu Abd al-Shams was known not just for their ability in war, but they were known for running
the caravans, all of the trade to Al-Sham, right, which Abu Sufyan will be famous for. Who is, who are the richest companions that come to your mind from the Prophet's companions? Uthman ibn Affan radiAllahu anhu is the cousin of Abu Sufyan, he's also from Banu Abd al-Shams. So you think about the aristocrats of Mecca, the people who have all the money, the people who have a concentration of power, his father-in-law is Utbah ibn Rabi'a, who's one of the chieftains of Mecca, and we learned quite a bit about him, and he's one of the staunch opponents of the Prophet ﷺ as well, and it's too hard to talk about his whole family because Abu Sufyan had seven wives in total, and way too many children to count. So children and grandchildren, plentiful. Seven marriages total, his two most famous wives, the first one is Hind ibn Utbah, who we're going to talk about, Hind ibn Utbah ibn Rabi'a, Hind being the woman who was famous for what? For chewing the liver of Hamza radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, right? So this is the wife of Abu Sufyan, and his other wife Safiyyah ibn Abi al-'As, who's the aunt of Uthman and the mother of Umm Habibah radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, the wife of the Prophet ﷺ. Abu Sufyan's sister, I'm not going to go too much longer in the family tree, I'm just going to move on inshaAllah. His sister Arwah is the wife of Abu Lahab. And some of the scholars of tafsir say, the woman carrying the wood is actually speaking to the sister of Abu Sufyan, okay, who's the wife of Abu Lahab, right? So one of the wives of Abu Lahab is the sister of Abu Sufyan radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, he's known as rayat al-ru'asaa allati tusamma al-'uqab, that in the times of war, when the
banner was handed to the senior amongst them, when things became difficult and everyone had to retreat, Abu Sufyan is the head of Quraysh, the ameer of Quraysh that the people always retreat to. So he occupies this lofty position in the life of the Prophet ﷺ. He's also older than the Prophet ﷺ. And this is one of the interesting things that's narrated about him, it's narrated that he was 20 years, he was born 20 years before the Prophet ﷺ and he died 20 years after the Prophet ﷺ. So he lives an extremely long life, anywhere from 10 to 20 years older than the Prophet ﷺ. And basically, he was most famous for his caravans, the large amount of trade that he used to do with the world around. So he used to go out to Asham frequently, to Palestine, to Syria frequently, he used to go out to Yemen frequently. He used to run the marketplace of Mecca during the pilgrimage seasons. So when you think about all of the leaders, the Abu Jahls and the Abu Lahabs of the world, Abu Sufyan is the one that kind of has the smarts of the caravans that go out and how the caravans come in. The merchants that come from Yemen and that come from Syria know Abu Sufyan as the point person, and Abu Sufyan knows them when he goes to Yemen and Asham, and he's someone that has a lot to lose when the Prophet ﷺ declares his Islam. Why? Because military power, he's afraid of losing. His wealth, he's afraid of losing because all of the exploitation, all of the riba, all of the interest and usury and the power that's occupied there. And of course, beyond that, seniority. He's looked at as occupying this point between the eldest of Quraysh, the eldest leaders of Quraysh, and then the younger generation. He's kind of situated between the two generations.
And so he's the natural next leader of Quraysh, and as soon as he sees the Prophet ﷺ declaring Islam, despite knowing everything he knew about the Prophet ﷺ, like Abu Jahl, he immediately thinks, Bani Abd al-Shams, Bani Makhzum, Bani Hashim, we can't do it. I'm going to fight you. There is no way that I can concede that you are a Prophet of Allah, because if I concede that you are a Prophet of Allah, then I lose my position. This is all just to give you a little bit of a background before we get personal insha'Allah in the life of this man, Sakhar ibn Harb, Abu Sufyan, رضي الله تعالى عنه. Now, what happens? When the Prophet ﷺ announces his Prophethood, Abu Sufyan is not someone who takes the immediate violent reaction of Abu Jahl. Abu Sufyan is someone who's trying to think of the most diplomatic way to strategically undermine the Prophet ﷺ, and that speaks to a little bit of his mind, right? He's a lot less volatile than Abu Jahl is. So he's not someone that you see pouncing on the Muslims, pouncing on the Prophet ﷺ, suddenly pulling out his sword and fighting people. He's someone who's constantly planning in the background and scheming as to how to stop Islam from growing in Mecca. And they used to say that the three wise men of Quraish, who all became idiots when Islam came to Mecca, Abu Jahl, whose name was Abu al-Hakam, the father of wisdom, Utbah, the father-in-law of Abu Sufyan, and Abu Sufyan, they all took, subhanAllah, things that were completely opposite of what their stances would have been in the days of ignorance in regards to the Prophet ﷺ. So everything was counterintuitive about how they responded to the Prophet ﷺ, but still,
in keeping true to his character, he's someone who schemes against the Prophet ﷺ. And he's someone who will incite the violence, but who will rarely be actually seen holding the sword and actually abusing people in public, because he's kind of trying to maintain a reputation. He's also someone that continues his trade routes, even during the first several years of Islam. So many of the Meccans go on high alert, right, they're like, we have to solve this rebellion from the inside and squash this message. Abu Sufyan still goes to Yemen, he still goes to Asham, he still carries on growing his business and growing his trade, while he's scheming against the Prophet ﷺ in Mecca. Now one of the things that happens is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tests each and every single one of these men by someone of their own family, their closest relatives, becoming Muslim in the earliest batch. So his daughter, Umm Habibah, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anha, is considered to be the second person from Banu Umayyah to embrace Islam after Uthman, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anha. She's the second from the tribe to embrace Islam. She's one of As-sabiqun al-awwalun, one of the first Muslims, his own daughter. And this caused a lot of trouble to Abu Sufyan, it was embarrassing to him. Now she's married to Ubaidullah ibn Jahsh, so she's not technically living with him, but it's still a huge embarrassment that his own daughter would embrace the Prophet ﷺ's message at a very early point of the call to Islam. And of course, his own daughter as well as his cousin Uthman are both amongst those that migrate to Abyssinia to escape the persecution of Mecca.
So Abu Sufyan's daughter embraces Islam along with her husband, along with her cousin Uthman. They flee the persecution of the likes of Abu Sufyan and Utbah and others taking place in Mecca. Now Abu Sufyan, this is to give you some important context to the Battle of Badr, to him all of the wealth of the Muslims was fair game, including his own family. So once his own relatives go to Abyssinia, he confiscates their homes, he sells their homes, he includes it amongst his caravan. So he's actively stealing the wealth of the Muslims, including his own relatives, and consuming that and making it part of his caravan and basically making his caravan larger and larger and larger and larger. The reason why this is so important is that when you get to the Battle of Badr, it all starts with the caravan of Abu Sufyan, right? And you can imagine what precious wealth is in the caravan of Abu Sufyan, who shows no regard for the wealth of the Muslims, including his own in-laws, and there's a very famous story about Abu Ahmed, Abd ibn Jahsh, and his home, which was considered one of the best of Mecca, and he was a blind man. His home being stolen from him, sold, and then included in the caravan, the money being included in the caravan of Abu Sufyan. So he takes these caravans, and how does Abu Sufyan basically save face? So I want to give you just this high level. When you read about the Kuffar, the disbelievers of Mecca, spending money in charity and expecting a reward, it's usually talking about Abu Sufyan. Because the way Abu Sufyan covers for all this exploitation, and the way that he covers for all of the stealing and all this abuse with his wealth, is that he gives a lot of money in charity, right? He finances many of the military endeavors and the tribal endeavors of Quraysh.
He does a lot that earns him face amongst his people, but subhanAllah all of it is being spent in the way of the devil, right? And to actually oppress, and to actually harm. Now with all of that, Abu Sufyan comes to learn that his daughter, Umm Habiba, receives a marriage proposal from the Prophet ﷺ. Think about this marriage, because Umm Habiba's husband dies in Habasha, and we talked about her radiyAllahu ta'ala already in this series. Umm Habiba is in Abyssinia, a widow. The Prophet ﷺ is in Medina, Abu Sufyan is in Mecca. The Prophet ﷺ sends a marriage proposal to Umm Habiba in Abyssinia. The news of that reaches Abu Sufyan, who's trying to kill the Prophet ﷺ in Medina. Talk about an international, like this is before Zoom nikahs were even a thing, like this is all happening international, across borders, in very different political climates. But to give you an idea of the mindset of Abu Sufyan, and the way that he thinks, and how tribalistic of a man that he was, when he heard that Umm Habiba received a marriage proposal from the Prophet ﷺ, he said the words, That that is a noble stallion who should not be rejected. You know what, I'm trying to kill the man, and I can't stand him, but at the same time the Prophet ﷺ comes from a noble lineage, and so at the end of the day my daughter is marrying someone from a noble lineage, I'm okay with this. I'm still going to try to kill him, but I'm okay with this. At the end of the day my daughter is in good hands now, she's now part of, again the continuation of a noble lineage. So he's got a very strange tribalistic mindset, and he enters into this arena of opposition to the Prophet ﷺ from these very base places.
It's not like a noble type of opposition. It's tribe and money, tribe and money, tribe and money. Now after the Prophet ﷺ escapes and flees to Mecca, this is where the story now really starts to take shape. Abu Sufyan is still now in the second tier of the main opposition to the Prophet ﷺ because his elders are still alive. So Abu Jahl is still alive, Abu Lahab is still alive, Utbah is still alive, Umayyah is still alive, Al-Waleed ibn Mughirah is still alive, Al-'As is still alive. These are still sort of the elders to Abu Sufyan that are opposing the Prophet ﷺ. Abu Sufyan is in their group but he's still slightly younger than them. The Prophet ﷺ as he flees to Medina, he commissions these raids on the caravans to try to intercept some of what was stolen from the Muslims. And so as the caravans are going out to Ash-Sham and as they're going out to Yemen and they're returning, the Prophet ﷺ is trying to intercept some of those caravans. So what happens with the Battle of Badr? The Prophet ﷺ comes to know about the caravan of Abu Sufyan returning back to Mecca. And the caravan of Abu Sufyan had a thousand camels and over fifty thousand dinars worth of goods. It had much of the consumed and stolen wealth of the Muslims. And so the Prophet ﷺ sends a battalion, not an army, a battalion to try to intercept that which explains why you had such a small number of people on the side of the Muslims that weren't equipped for a battle when Badr happened. They didn't have camels, they didn't have horses, they didn't have their full armour, they had things that could keep them light in the desert, right, while they tried to intercept the caravan of Abu Sufyan.
Abu Sufyan hears about the plan of the Prophet ﷺ. So he diverts his caravan, his huge caravan, and he has forty guards to that caravan. So you can see how much he treasures that wealth. So you got a whole army of sorts protecting the caravan and he takes a different route. He alerts Abu Jahl and the leaders of Mecca and then they go out to meet the Prophet ﷺ and that small group of Muslims around the area of Badr. And that's how the Battle of Badr is going to take place, right. So Abu Sufyan escapes the Battle of Badr technically because his job is to actually safeguard his caravan from the Prophet ﷺ and from the Muslims before the Battle of Badr. However, most of the leaders of Quraysh are present in the Battle of Badr. Some of them didn't want to go out, including, by the way, the father-in-law of Abu Sufyan himself, Utbah. He didn't feel like it, but Abu Jahl was insisting. In fact, you have narrations of Abu Sufyan saying, look, we've got the caravan safe, there's no need to engage in battle now. Abu Jahl is the one who's insisting on trying to wipe out the Muslims while we have them vulnerable. So Abu Sufyan, his job is to protect the caravan, Abu Jahl is shaming the other leaders to go to battle with the Prophet ﷺ and to take advantage of the situation and to kill their own sons, right, in this battle and has a vengeance to him that everyone else is just kind of going along with. Abu Sufyan's not participating. However, his oldest son Hamdala and another one of his sons participates in the Battle of Badr, as well as his father-in-law and essentially all of his in-laws from the side of Hind bint Utbah. Now I want you to think of the commencement
of the Battle of Badr. As the Battle of Badr is getting started, if you remember in the beginning of the battle there is a duel. The duel that starts off the Battle of Badr, where you have three Muslims come forward and three of the opposing side come forward, the duel on their side includes the family, all three of them are the family of Abu Sufyan's in-laws. You have Utbah bin Rabi'ah, his father-in-law. You have Shaybah, the brother of Utbah. And you have Waleed. I'm sorry, yeah, Waleed. So you have Waleed bin Utbah, Shaybah and Utbah. All of them are from the same family coming out to fight the Muslims. And between Hamza radiyallahu ta'ala anhu and Ali radiyallahu ta'ala anhu and they finish all three of them. Okay, so all three of them are killed in that battle. Meaning that by the time Hind hears this, you can understand now where that vengeance is coming against Hamza radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, that you killed my father and you killed my brother. Right, she wants revenge on Hamza because Hamza radiyallahu ta'ala anhu technically is the one who killed her father and her brother in those duels. As for Abu Sufyan himself, his oldest son Hamzala died as a kafir on that day. He died as a disbeliever fighting the Muslims that day. So he's one of the casualties on the side of the mushrikeen. He had another son who the Prophet ﷺ had as a prisoner, but the Prophet ﷺ let him go. So he's one of the captives of Badr who was let go. All the captives, of course, were let go at some ransom in hopes that it would soften the hearts of the people of Mecca. It didn't soften the heart of Abu Sufyan or Hind at all, right, that his other son was let go, even though the aggression was coming from their side.
Hence comes the battle of Uhud. Now the first war, the first battle that Abu Sufyan is going to appear as the leader, the absolute leader of, is the battle of Uhud. He's going to lead Uhud against the Prophet ﷺ and he's going to lead Khandaq, the siege of Medina, and the battle of the trench against the Prophet ﷺ. So he is the core leader, the supreme leader of both of those battles because everyone else that was of that level had already perished in Badr. So all of his colleagues, all of those that were at his level or senior to him, had died in the battle of Badr. And now they are coming to Uhud with a sense of pure vengeance and hatred towards the Prophet ﷺ and there is none that has more hatred in her heart than Hind bin Utbah, than his wife Hind, who wants revenge for the murder of her father and the murder of her brother. I mean she's the one bringing out the women to the battlefield, she's got the war drums, she's authoring poetry, basically saying to the men that if you lose this battle then don't come home, then we will not accept you back into our homes if you flee from this battlefield. She is the one who is leading the group of the insiders in the battle of Uhud and demanding the mutilation of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, specifically Hamza ﷺ and she's the one that promises Wahshi his freedom if he kills Hamza and brings to Hamza the, brings to her the liver of Hamza ﷺ so that she could chew the liver of Hamza ﷺ as an act of humiliation. SubhanAllah, as this battle takes place I want you to just imagine the Qadr of Allah because when we talk about like why me,
there's a lot of why me's in the family of Abu Sufyan. Both Abu Sufyan and Hind almost got killed on the day of Uhud. SubhanAllah how Allah spared them. As for Hind, if you remember the story of Abu Dujanah ﷺ, when Abu Dujanah ﷺ cut across the battlefield he made it so quickly through the lines of the disbelievers that he got all the way to the women that were beating the drums and singing the song and he was cutting so fast and slicing so fast he ended up and he said I had my sword right on top of a woman and she gasped and Az-Zubayr is watching this whole thing and she was singing the lines of incitement and who was it? Hind bint Utbah and Abu Dujanah had his sword then he pulled the sword back. SubhanAllah, Az-Zubayr and by the way she's an active participant in this battle if you think about it she's going around beating the drums telling the men to go forward and to kill and you're in a moment of heat. Az-Zubayr asked Abu Dujanah what happened and he said that when I reached her or when I was going through and I realized that it was a woman that was under me, فأكرمت سيف رسول الله ﷺ و أضرب به امرأة I found the sword of the Prophet ﷺ too noble to use it to strike a woman. I wasn't going to use the sword of the Prophet ﷺ to strike a woman so he spared her. Now you would hope that that would have softened her heart a bit right? It didn't. The vengeance was still consuming her and SubhanAllah it was her and it was the wife of Amr bin Aas and it was the wife of Ikramah bin Abi Jahl and all of these women who would become Muslim one day who were beating the drums and calling for the body parts of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ in revenge for those that
were killed in the battle of Badr. So Hind survives due to an act of nobility from Az-Zubayr I'm sorry from Abu Dujanah ﷺ. As for Abu Sufyan, SubhanAllah it's actually really interesting the very famous Hamdala, Hamdala bin Abi Amr who's known as Ghasir al-Malaika, the one who the angels washed. The very famous Hamdala, the young man رضي الله عنه, he actually got to Abu Sufyan on the battlefield and he managed to knock him off of his horse and he was just about to kill him but then Shaddad ibn Aswad killed him from behind. So Abu Sufyan was on his back about to die on the day of Uhud and what a miserable fate it would have been right? And instead Allah spared him Hamdala رضي الله عنه was martyred and Hamdala was taken up to the heavens and washed. And by the way and SubhanAllah the irony continues, the son of Hamdala that was born from that night meaning this you know his wife was pregnant that night, the son of Hamdala that was born would later on go on to be martyred by the grandson of Abu Sufyan Yazid ibn Muawiyah. So it's just the twist of fate happening over and over again right? So Hind was under the sword of Abu Dujana, Abu Sufyan was on his back Hamdala over him and both of them somehow by the Qadr of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala survived that day right? As time goes on as Uhud commences, Abu Sufyan was commanding the middle, Ikramah on the right, Khalid on the left and we know that Khalid رضي الله عنه was able to carry out the defeat of the Muslims with his strategy. After that massacre of the companions takes place,
the most famous conversation after Uhud is between Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه and Abu Sufyan. Abu Sufyan chanting with Khalid and Ikramah and Amr ibn al-As calling out and asking while the Prophet ﷺ is covered in blood and barely alive أَفِي الْقَوْمِ مُحَمَّدٌ Is Muhammad amongst you? The Prophet ﷺ says لا تُجِيبُ don't answer him أَفِي الْقَوْمِ ابْنِ أَبِي قُحَافَةٌ Is Abu Bakr amongst them? The Prophet ﷺ says don't answer أَفِي الْقَوْمِ عُمَرٌ Is Umar amongst them? The Prophet ﷺ says don't answer Abu Sufyan celebrates, that means we killed them, that means we won, we won, we killed Muhammad ﷺ, we killed Abu Bakr, we killed Umar and that's when Umar responds and says كَذَبْتَ يَا عَدُوَ اللَّهِ قَدْ أَبْقَى اللَّهُ مَا يُخْزِيكَ You've lied, O enemy of Allah, Allah has preserved that which causes you disgrace and that's when the slogans start to come out and Abu Sufyan calls out to Umar and he says لَنَا الْعُزَّ وَلَا عُزَّ لَكُمْ We have Uzza and you have no Uzza We have Laat, we have, starts to call out the names of their gods Prophet ﷺ says respond and say اللَّهُ مَوْلَانَ وَلَا مَوْلَى لَكُمْ Allah is our protector, you have no protector أُعْلُوا هُبَل He's calling out may Hubal be exalted, the Prophet ﷺ says to Umar رضي الله عنه respond to him and say الله أعلى وأجل Allah is higher and more exalted Abu Sufyan says a day for a day, our dead for your dead, Prophet ﷺ says you can respond and say your dead are in the fire, our dead are in paradise قَتْلَانَا فِي الْجَنَّ وَقَتْلَاكُمْ فِي الْنَّارِ So Abu Sufyan is flustered and frustrated on the battlefield because we're supposed to win here but this doesn't feel like a win
right, the Muslims still have such moral clarity it doesn't feel like a win and subhanAllah he survives the battle of Uhud, as for Hind she carries out that despicable act and I just want you to think about that subhanAllah Sayyid al-Shuhada the master of the martyrs on the day of judgment, Hind is the one who had his chest cut open, who took his liver, who chewed his liver and spit it out and subhanAllah she dies a Muslim, you talk about people meeting in Jannah what a meeting right, aren't you the woman you know subhanAllah that chewed out, Allah knows best this is how the Qadr of Allah works right, people that repent and redeem themselves later on in any case after Uhud, actually if you think about it all of these stories have showed up in different Sahaba but when you put it all together in a narrative they weren't satisfied the Mushrikeen weren't satisfied, they wanted more, more vengeance right and so you had the massacres of Ma'una and the massacres of Al-Rajee' the massacres of more companions that were ambushed than the total companions that were martyred in Uhud, Abu Sufyan is the one who is torturing Khubaib ibn Adin radiAllahu ta'ala anhu and as he's being crucified and he's being cut limb by limb and the blood is dripping from him Abu Sufyan says bring him down let me ask him a question think about Abu Sufyan psychological torture and he stands in front of Khubaib and he says to him if Muhammad ﷺ could be in your place right now would you accept it wouldn't you rather that instead of you taking this beating and being cut up into pieces like this wouldn't you like that Muhammad ﷺ be in your place and Khubaib said to him
I would not even accept a thorn pricking the messenger of Allah ﷺ in place of what I'm going through right now Abu Sufyan he said So I've never seen a man in my life who is loved the way that Muhammad ﷺ is loved by his companions I don't get it this doesn't make sense meaning if you if you kind of follow the logic of Abu Sufyan all of what he thought he knew in terms of how human beings and societies function is falling apart in the aftermath of Uhud we were supposed to win but we didn't win we really didn't feel like we won I'm torturing this man and breaking him down he's being cut up into pieces and crucified and he still has this clarity and it drives him crazy what is it about you and Muawiyah who was a child at the time he says that when Khubaib made the dua Oh Allah count them and kill them all one by one and don't spare a single one of them Muawiyah says Abu Sufyan my father because I was a kid he threw me to the ground to my back and he laid down on his back worried about something coming down from the heavens to strike him that was the power of the dua that was made against him somehow he survives he doesn't wake up SubhanAllah look at the stubbornness that takes place Abu Sufyan is in Mecca Abu Jahl is gone Abu Lahab is gone all of them are gone he is the one who now says let us lead a siege on Medina and let's end this once and for all so Abu Sufyan is the leader of this effort now to carry out a genocide in Medina to remove the Muslims from the face of
the earth and wipe them all out he is the one who's galvanizing the Bedouin tribes galvanizing all of the Meccans and he says I will personally put all of my wealth on this whatever it costs we have it and that's the thing he was being praised for his sadaqah how ironic he was being praised for his charity in Mecca look at how noble Abu Sufyan is he puts his money where his mouth is right puts all of his personal money into this noble effort of trying to wipe out this group of people so Abu Sufyan leads the largest army in the history of the Arabs against Medina and places Medina under siege for that month of tribulation SubhanAllah in this by the way there's something to pay attention to which is that his daughter was not in Medina she was still in Abyssinia right so that's something to keep in mind here second thing is Hudayf ibn al-Yaman has the narration about how difficult things are becoming so you're always getting this peak of Abu Sufyan on the other side as he's leading these efforts against the Prophet ﷺ Hudayf was the one who the Prophet ﷺ commissioned to go and to find out what they were planning as the dua of the Prophet ﷺ for wind to blow upon them and for difficulty to come upon them was making it too difficult for the army from Mecca to survive outside of the trench eventually the frustration was growing so Hudayf was sent on this mission to basically go and spy and to get the news and it was a very difficult mission so he goes out at night and he pretends to be one of the Meccans so he crosses the ditch pretends to be one of the Meccans and he says فَقَامَ أَبُو سُفْيَانِ بِنُ حَرْبِ Abu Sufyan stood up and Abu Sufyan was a large man huge man huge in his posture right similar to the the way that Abu Jahl is described and Khalid
is described رضي الله عنه he has a huge posture and he has a booming voice and he says that Abu Sufyan stood up and so I you know I looked as if I'm receiving orders I'm in the ranks of the mushrikeen and he said يَا مَعْشَرَ قُرَيْشِ لِيَنظُرِمْ رُؤٍّ مَنْ جَلِيصُهُ every one of you check the person that's next to you he had a sense that he was infiltrated Abu Sufyan smart he's like something feels off about this gathering we've got a we've got a spy in the gathering so Abu Sufyan says with a booming voice everyone check the person that's next to you so Hudhaifa he's smart he says فَأَخَذْتُ بِيَدِ الرَّجُلِ الَّذِى إِلَى جَنْبِهِ فَأَخَذْتُ بِيَدِ الرَّجُلِ الَّذِى إِلَى جَنْبِهِ so I took the man next to me and I said من أنت من أنت who are you who are you I started shaking up the man next to me and I shook him up so much that he didn't even ask me who I was like I said it with such confidence in my voice that I was one of them who are you tell me who you are so Abu Sufyan he asked he said are we all clear everyone said we're all clear so Hudhaifa said سبحان الله and this is so so much he said and then I had a clean shot of Abu Sufyan like I was standing right next to him and I could have killed him and he said and I thought about it but then I remembered that the Prophet ﷺ said don't cause any commotion so he said I went back and forth with myself because I was there I crossed and I was right next to him I could have easily just taken him out right then and there subhanallah another time your life is right there and he said no but I remember the Prophet ﷺ said don't cause a skirmish so he said you know I decided to put my weapons away cross back the khandaq I came back and he said that I was absolutely exhausted I went back to the Prophet ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ was was in salah he was praying and the Prophet ﷺ threw me a shawl basically as a blanket right and he said that I immediately I wrapped myself in the shawl of the Prophet ﷺ I knocked
out I went to sleep and the Prophet ﷺ woke me up and said get up sleepy head wake up no man was literally a gnome you know he was making fun of his name ﷺ but basically as a means of lightening it up right and telling tell me what happened so Hudayfa explained to the Prophet ﷺ what happened with Abu Sufyan says ya Rasulullah I had a clean shot but you told me not to cause commotion so I left him so Abu Sufyan survived Badr because he was protecting the caravan he survived Uhud on his back he survived the dua of Khubaib he survived khandaq right in the reach of Hudayfa ibn al-Yaman Allah is clearly sparing this man for a reason because otherwise his fate should be like the fate of everybody else why is all of this happening then comes afterwards obviously Hudaybiyyah the treaty of Hudaybiyyah so he's led these two attempts to wipe out the Prophet ﷺ it didn't work right at least not a total wipe out of the Prophet ﷺ and the companions so Hudaybiyyah happens the treaty of Hudaybiyyah and when the treaty of Hudaybiyyah happens it gives Abu Sufyan a chance to basically resume his caravans and the Prophet ﷺ to resume his da'wah right so the peace treaty allows the Prophet ﷺ to send his letters to different parts of the world to do da'wah and Abu Sufyan is going to take a break from war or so he thinks he's going to take a break from battle and get back into his wealth get back into trading right we have a truce for now so Abu Sufyan he tells this story he says so I went on and this is in al-Bukhari it's actually one of the first hadith that you find in Sahih al-Bukhari the book of faith in the beginning of revelation he says that I got to Jerusalem and subhanallah as he arrived at Jerusalem
with his companions may Allah ﷻ liberate al-Quds Allahumma ameen Haraqal who was the leader of Rome had just received the letter of the Prophet ﷺ calling him to Islam and it caused him panic why because Haraqal saw a dream that indicated that the Prophet had come and he was a devout Christian and that the son of the circumcised one had come meaning someone who's reviving the way of Ibrahim ﷺ and things had just settled down with the Persians so the Romans just defeated the Persians they'd recovered their city they'd recovered their cross they'd recovered all of their sort of haybah their nobility and now he receives this letter calling him to Islam and it really startles him because it coincides with the dream that he has and on top of that it happened to be in trading season so Haraqal says is anyone here from Mecca so they said Abu Sufyan just showed up with his two companions so Haraqal says bring them to me so Abu Sufyan thinks he's getting a break from all of what's happening right now he's pulled to the court of Haraqal of Heraclius and Heraclius says which one of you is the closest to the man who claims to be the Prophet so Abu Sufyan says in terms of lineage it's me I'm technically a distant cousin of the Prophet ﷺ of Muhammad ﷺ so Haraqal says come here stand in front of me and he told the companions of Abu Sufyan come back come behind him stand behind him I'm going to ask him some questions if he tells a lie let me know I'm going to take his head off so you're going to tell me the truth you guys are going to make sure that he's telling the truth or else he's dead right so Abu Sufyan
has to tell the truth about the Prophet ﷺ or else he risks death so he's like if it wasn't for the fact that these two men behind me might actually indicate that I told a lie then I would have said some things differently about Muhammad ﷺ but I had to be honest so he says that the questioning then commenced so he asked me and it's a long hadith I won't go into the details because in and of itself is a beautiful narration what is his family status amongst you and Abu Sufyan said he belongs to a noble family amongst us Heraclius says has anyone amongst you ever claimed to be the same before him Abu Sufyan says no has anyone from it was anyone from his ancestors a king no Heraclius says who follows him the elite ones or the the downtrodden Abu Sufyan says it's the downtrodden and he said are his followers increasing or decreasing Abu Sufyan says they're increasing like he's having to swallow every single answer he has to just say what it is and he says this is so powerful he said does anyone leave his religion out of being dissatisfied with his religion after faith enters into their heart meaning it's understandable if you persecute people out of Islam like you fight people until they leave Islam or you make it so difficult that some people leave Islam but are you finding mass apostasy amongst them because the religion just didn't turn out to be what we thought it was he said no everyone that's becoming Muslim is staying Muslim right in fact despite the persecution they're insisting more and Heraclius says have you ever accused him of telling lies before he made the claim to prophethood so no we knew him as a sadiq al-ameen he was trustworthy and truthful never told a lie did he ever break promises before nope he never broke a promise so he said that with all of that you know what is it he said well right now subhanAllah this is really
interesting so he never broke a promise so Abu Sufyan thought of something he said but right now we have a surah we have a truce and we still don't know how he's going to behave with that truce so he might break this promise so we still have to wait to see the verdict is still out on him and Heraclius says have you ever had a war with him you ever been to battle with him Abu Sufyan said yes Heraclius said what happened with those battles he said sometimes he's victorious and sometimes we are victorious and Heraclius said and what does he command you to do he said he tells us to worship Allah and Allah alone and to renounce the way of our ancestors and he orders us to pray to speak the truth to be modest to keep good relations with our families and so Heraclius he's asking the translator to basically give him so there's a mutarjim there's a translator between him and Abu Sufyan as he's getting all of this Heraclius goes back and based on his theology his understanding of Christianity he basically says all 10 ways that you just answered prove to me that he's a prophet of Allah so he went one by one and he said I asked you this and you answered this way and this is the way of a prophet so you could look up the long hadith of Abu Sufyan and Heraclius the point is at the end of it Abu Sufyan said that I told the two guys that were with me I said the way of Muhammad is becoming so compelling that he's got kings of the Romans afraid of him like he's become the conversation we thought this was just an affair between us in the desert but he's got the kings of Rome talking about him and he said at that moment he said I knew from that day that he was going to attain victory until the day that Allah would
enter me into Islam like that's when I kind of knew that this was not going to go well for me SubhanAllah what ends up happening who broke the treaty the Meccans or the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam the Meccans broke the treaty of Udaybiyyah and Abu Sufyan is a smart man and he recognizes that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's ummah has grown because in this period of da'wah so many more people have become Muslim we can't afford to go to battle with the Muslims right now this isn't the same Muslim community from the year before right they've grown there are thousands that have been added to their ranks so Abu Sufyan wants to salvage the truce even though it was an ally tribe to him that attacked an ally tribe to the Muslims and broke the truce so he panics and that's when he comes begging and he starts going to different people he tries to speak to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam turns away from him Abu Bakr turns away from him Umar turns away from him Khalid and Amr his two former companions turn away from like you're not getting it yet you're not waking up yet to the reality of Islam he tries with Fatima Fatima has nothing to do with him he's going and he's pleading with people but he's trying to use the same diplomacy and the Muslims in Medina don't have the appetite for it anymore it's like look we're not doing this anymore we're not playing this game with you anymore so then he went to Um Habiba his daughter because remember after Khandaq and Khaybar the Muslims from Abyssinia came to Medina so he's going to meet his daughter for the first time in almost 15 years she fled persecution that he was part of and he knocks on the door and Um Habiba is sitting in her home and she's sitting on the mattress the one mattress that they had in the house of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and she quickly folds it up and she sits on it
meaning you you're not sitting on this mattress so he says is it too noble for me or am I too noble for it like what's going on here why can't I sit like you on this thing and she said this is the bed of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and you're not worthy of sitting on the same bed as the as the one of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam SubhanAllah to her own father talk about a slap in the face like you're talking about nobility and you know trying to preserve something of your dignity and trying to preserve your honor your own daughter says you're not worthy to sit on the bed of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he's realizing SubhanAllah that it's not just Khubaib it's not it's not just a few of these Muslims his own daughter this affair of Islam is growing to a point that it becomes completely irresistible now Umm Habibah by the way they said that the longest two sajdas that she made were the day that her father and her brother became Muslims so she loved her father and will find a relationship that returns after Abu Sufyan becomes Muslim but right now Abu Sufyan is rejected he comes back to Mecca and basically the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is making plans for Fatih Mecca in Ramadan and he really knows that he doesn't stand a chance at that point he goes to his old friends Al-Abbas Al-Abbas is the uncle of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he hid his Islam for many years it's uncertain when he actually embraced Islam publicly embraced Islam but he lived in Mecca he's involved in the marketplace he has an old relationship with Abu Sufyan Abu Sufyan comes to Al-Abbas and he's confiding in Al-Abbas that he's basically running out of options Al-Abbas is telling him listen just embrace Islam and give it up just stop like you've gone too long
Allah has given you too many chances stop it's time for you to wake up it's time for you to embrace Islam you're still not getting it but Abu Sufyan still is plotting still trying to find a way to intercept to salvage to preserve so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is talking to Al-Abbas Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam as he's camping on the outskirts of Mecca as he's making preparations to enter into Mecca so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam tells Al-Abbas Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that you know invite Abu Sufyan to your house let him stay with you and then when the morning comes bring him to me bring Abu Sufyan to me so Al-Abbas says that Abu Sufyan came to my home he spent the night in my home then I told him let's go see Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam let's go see the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam so he says so when we got to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam saw Abu Sufyan he said Abu Sufyan woe to you oh Abu Sufyan isn't it time for you to realize that there is no god but Allah isn't it time for you to figure this out come on enough isn't it time for you to realize la ilaha illallah so Abu Sufyan responded to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he said kindness said by my father or may my father and mother be sacrificed for you what a noble and kind man that you are right he's praising the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's manners and he says he said you know at this point to be honest with you I'm starting to think that if Allah had if there was another god besides Allah he probably would have helped me by now all this plotting and planning and trying to save these idols and trying to fight you with these idols so he's basically telling the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam look as for la ilaha illallah it's making sense to me
now I'm starting to get it that you have one god that is guiding you to this path then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says isn't it time for you to realize that I am the messenger of Allah and he says he said listen to be honest with you until now it's not settling with me so he's still being stubborn with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he's saying till now I can't say it he says to him he said just go ahead and become Muslim he says before your neck gets struck right because Al-Abbas recognizes that this situation is tense and he doesn't know what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is planning to do in terms of forgiveness right this general amnesty but like you fought him so much you've committed so much harm come on stop just say la ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah so in any case Abu Sufyan said it but he still wasn't really there he said it just in the situation but in his mind in his heart he's still plotting he's still I'm not really there yet so he kind of said it in a moment of just the situation and to save himself in the situation Al-Abbas calls the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he says this is a really like SubhanAllah if I could say that there's one lecture that people of da'wah and leaders need to understand and honestly as a community who's redeemable and who's not this is a really important lesson here Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam could say the heck with him I'm done with him anyway who's gonna what are the repercussions if I do away with him
and Al-Abbas is saying he likes to be recognized in a gathering so he says give him something like throw him a bone as you're coming into Mecca so that he can feel better about this entire situation the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam could say this man fought the Muslims he killed Muslims he's an enemy of Allah I don't care about his feelings why do I care about his feelings it's the day of victory but the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam takes into consideration he says okay for the sake of Allah for the sake of Islam for that bigger picture I'll do it even though this is technically isn't it playing to some a disease in his heart I mean it's pride but there's a bigger play here if I win over Abu Sufyan that's going to dramatically change the tensions in Mecca the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is after the heart of Abu Sufyan and he's looking to the bigger picture he's not going to succumb to that moment and someone a young person out of purity might say to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam right how could you Ya Rasulullah why are you showing respect to Abu Sufyan forget Abu Sufyan isn't that the whole context of like why are you giving the spoils of war to these people in Mecca why don't you treat these elites of Mecca the way that they treated us this this and that Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says fine and until the last moment Abu Sufyan is still not sure and he still kind of got it in him and Abbas is saying to him woe to you Abu Sufyan stop right admit it come to terms with this he is Rasulullah then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says as he's coming into Mecca the famous words من دخل دار أبي سفيان فهو آمن ومن دخل المسجد فهو آمن ومن أغلق عليه بابه فهو آمن this is the announcement of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
whoever enters into the house of Abu Sufyan is safe and whoever enters into the Haram is safe and whoever closes his door is safe can you imagine Abu Sufyan like whoa think about that recognition wait he recognized me like that so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that to him and Abbas is saying to him give it up stop right Allah spared you and gave you an opportunity now SubhanAllah if you think about how many tensions the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam has to has to navigate here because this is not just about attaining a military victory while this is happening Sa'd Ibn Ubadah radiAllahu ta'ala from the Ansar one of the greatest of the Ansar he's walking in and he has the banner and he says اليوم يوم الملحمة اليوم يوم الملحمة today is the day of slaughter today is the day of revenge اليوم تستحل الكعبة today we will make halal the Kaaba meaning we're going to come back and we're going to do to these people what they did to us Abu Sufyan complains to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam about that what does the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam do he doesn't say your problem not mine Abu Sufyan takes the banner away from Sa'd Ibn Ubadah today is a day of mercy today is not a day of slaughter today is a day that the Kaaba is honored today is not a day that the Kaaba is made halal no no this is not what we're doing today so Sa'd Ibn Ubadah and remember the name because Sa'd Ibn Ubadah is one of the earliest Ansar he has that he could have been a Khalifa of the Muslims by the way he has the banner taken away from him and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is easing the tensions there's another or there are several skirmishes that take place Abu Sufyan still has a lot of jahal a lot of ignorance in him the way he's going to act Bilal Radhiallahu Anhu gets up on the Kaaba Abu Sufyan is like I you know I I'm not you know how they they have that uh that saying if I speak he says I'm not going to say anything because if I do the heavens and the earth will testify against me but he's disgusted basically that
racism that tribalism is still inside him he's looking at Bilal Radhiallahu Anhu standing on the Kaaba calling the Adhan and according to many of the scholars that's where the verse of Surah Al-Hujurat of equality was revealed at that time so Abu Sufyan swallows it but he's still messed up like he still has some some concepts that are not right this is not an easy Islam here this is a very complicated case of Islam then what happens Bilal, Ammar ibn Yasir, Suhaib al-Rumi they walk past Abu Sufyan on the day of Fatih Mecca and they look at him and they say to him that wallahi we swear by Allah the swords of Allah did not reach the neck of the enemy of Allah like they should have like Abu Sufyan you're lucky we didn't get to you before the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam let you go now by the way I mean think about this one of the beauties of this SubhanAllah moment all of the tortured slaves of Mecca lived to see the conquest of Mecca they're there in Fatih Mecca SubhanAllah and they're seeing the day of victory and now the elites that survived are under their power look how complicated this gets Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu was thinking like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam about settling things down calming down tensions we need to win people's hearts to Islam here we need to solve problems we can't let this happen so Abu Bakr radiallahu ta'ala anhu he says to Bilal and Suhaib and Ammar he says to them are you saying that to the leader of Quraish the elder of Quraish and their noble one so when that happens Abu Bakr comes to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he tells the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam what happened so do you understand what happened here Bilal, Ammar, Suhaib who were honored on the day of Mecca on the day of Fatih Mecca just threatened Abu Sufyan who the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam forgave Abu Bakr admonished Bilal and Suhaib and Ammar for speaking that way to Abu Sufyan what do you think the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is going to do here the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says to Abu Bakr oh Abu Bakr you may have upset Bilal, Suhaib and Ammar and if you upset them you may have upset your lord SubhanAllah the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is trying to win the heart of Abu Sufyan but he's not going to diminish today Bilal and Suhaib and Ammar and those early and this is the wisdom of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam the generosity of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that we're not replacing As-Sabiqoon Al-Awaloon we're not replacing these firsts who became Muslim and sacrificed everything with these leaders of Quraish brothers if you can move in inshallah to as much as possible so that those that are coming in can sit inshallah we're not going to replace them this day but at the same time the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is trying to win their heart so Abu Bakr goes back to Bilal and Ammar and Suhaib and he says to them did I make you upset did I anger you oh my brothers and they said may Allah forgive you oh our brother you're Abu Bakr of course you're we're not mad at you so he had to make sure that he didn't upset Bilal and Suhaib and Ammar because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam understands what that what Bilal and Ammar and Suhaib underwent at the hands of the likes of Abu Sufyan is not like what Abu Bakr underwent at the hands of Abu Sufyan these are different people the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam understands that these are different types of emotions that he has to navigate
so subhanAllah after that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam enters into Mecca Fatah Mecca takes place the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam attains his victory Abu Sufyan's heart is is is settling into Islam why because he's seeing that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam all the skepticism he has about him is going away in one narration he says to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and Ibn Abbas says that the Muslims the Muslims would not even look at Abu Sufyan like he was disgraced on that day even though the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam forgave him he still was kind of humiliated like everyone hated him right he was the chief enemy of the Muslims for all these years so Abu Sufyan came to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he asked the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam some three things he said you know to affirm the marriage of Umm Habiba which the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did to take Muawiyah his son who was young at the time radiAllahu anhu to serve as a scribe he did and he said Ya Rasulullah and make me a commander in the Muslim army so that I could fight for the Muslims the way I fought against the Muslims Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said like that okay and even the narrator of the hadith says that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would not have given that to him had he not asked that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not want to respond negatively to his asks the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is conferring and he's seeing the situation as it's taking place in this regard Hind bint Utbah comes forth with the wife of Ikram bin Abi Jahl, Hind is terrified of what she's going to find from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam she spit out the liver of his uncle Hamza and no one was more beloved to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam than Hamza radiAllahu anhu I mean put yourself in that situation like you think about Yusuf Alaihi Wasallam and when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said La Tathreeba Alaykum Al Yawm and he's repeating the words of Yusuf he's also emanating the spirit of Yusuf like this is deep
this is not just like some people that did some bad things to you, this woman carved out and spit out the liver of your uncle and you know what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam received her with warmth, Marhaban, welcome she said Ya Rasulullah I seek your forgiveness for all that I've done in the past I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that you are the messenger of Allah the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam immediately accepted it from her no blame on you today, it's over, we're not going to have to go through this ever again SubhanAllah Abu Sufyan is forgiven and he's starting to realize he's forgiven, Hind is forgiven that this is not a game, that there is no loopholes to this, that there is nothing that is actually out of the ordinary to this and he comes to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he says Fidaaka Abi Wa Ummi Wallahi Innaka La Kareem Walaqad Harabtuka Fani'ma Muharibi Kunt Thumma Salamtuka Fani'ma Al Musalimu Ant Fa Jazaka Allahu Khairan says to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam may my mother and my father be sacrificed for you said what a noble man you are, I fought you and what a noble opponent you were in battle and then I made peace with you and what a noble man you were in peace Fa Jazaka Allahu Khairan, may Allah reward you with good what does this translate into, all of this and again you could have had a lot of people said A'udhu Billah why are you treating Abu Sufyan like this, he's an enemy of Allah we have to take revenge, what's going to be the outcome of this immediately after Fatah Mecca, Hunayn happens, the battle of Hunayn and these Bedouin tribes who are gathering up ambush a much larger army of the Muslims but it gets very very severe in battle and guess what, as the Hawazin ambushed and many people fled the battlefield, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam looks to his right and to his left and who does he find on the battlefield fighting right next to him he finds Ali RadhiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu, he finds Al-Abbas RadhiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu
he finds Abu Bakr and Umar, he finds Usama Ibn Zaid and then he finds Abu Sufyan refusing to leave his side on the battlefield and fighting courageously you know the ayah, اِتْفَعْ بِاللَّتِهِ اَحْسَنْ فَإِذَا الَّذِي بَيْنَكَ وَبَيْنَهُ عَدَاوَةٌ كَأَنَّهُ وَلِيٌّ حَمِيمٌ respond to evil with that which is better, your severe enemy will become your loving friend your protective friend, this is that ayah, Abu Sufyan is a man of loyalty, he's got a certain mindset, a psychology to him, if at this point Islam hadn't settled in his heart and if at this point he would have seen something from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that was to his previous moral self, he would have been like forget this, this is an opportunity, I'm going to join those guys, go back and take Mecca but he stands guard with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam despite by the way being almost 20 years older than the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam so he's old right now and he fights until the very last moment warding off the attack, after Hunayn, Ta'if happens, this is really going to blow your mind, in Ta'if he's next to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam fighting and he loses an eye in Ta'if, Abu Sufyan who fought the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam all these years, had an eye that was plucked from him and he comes to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam with an eye completely destroyed and he says my eye was cut for the sake of Allah, oh messenger of Allah, Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says if you want I'll make dua and Allah will bring back your vision he says Abu Sufyan if you desire instead of this eye of yours you'll get Jannah he said Al-Jannah, I'll take Jannah, see the shift in mindset, same Abu Sufyan, shift in mindset
I'll take Jannah and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave him a hundred camels and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave him 40 uqiya of gold, a lot of the spoils of war, now this will give you another perspective another lens, who did the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam take the banner away from when they were coming into Mecca, Sa'ad ibn Ubadah, the leader of the Ansar, that famous incident Sa'ad ibn Ubadah is the one who comes to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he says look some of the people are saying stuff, what is it, Ya Sa'ad and he said some of the Ansar are saying that now that you've come back to Mecca you're going to leave us behind because of the spoils that you're giving to the people of Mecca that were you know it's it's done and that's the famous gathering where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gathers the Ansar and he assures them that these people go home with their camels, with their sheep, with their money, you go home with Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, this man Alayhi Salaatu Wasallam successfully managed and won the hearts of the Ansar, Abu Sufyan, Abu Bakr, Bilal, Suhaib, all in the same incidents, that in and of itself is a sign that he's the messenger of Allah, you know when Qadi Ayyad says that if there was no other proof of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's prophethood except for his Sahaba, that's enough of a proof, this is it and of course greater than that is the Quran, he managed to settle all of them and to get them all on the same page, I'm going to move forward inshallah towards the end of this which is Abu Sufyan was commissioned to destroy Allat, the same man that was shouting in the battlefield, he's one of those who goes and who destroys Allat, the idol that he was once beating his chest over, Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu appoints him as a leader of Najran, Abu Sufyan fought against the Murtaddin, those that apostated, again if the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam hadn't treated him that way, if Islam didn't settle his heart, don't you think he would have took it as an opportunity and just joined the ranks of the apostates and tried to
retake power in Mecca, fought against them, then comes the time of Umar radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu and again it gets complicated, Umar radiAllahu Anhu doesn't like to play politics, doesn't really care much about your feelings, so when the lines would take part in front of Umar radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu Umar radiAllahu Anhu would arrange the lines in front of his house in accordance of what, the earliest people to embrace Islam get preference, so when you show up in front of the door of Umar, he literally judges the line by the first, so all of you that became Muslim later, to the back of the line, I don't care who you are, so Abu Sufyan shows up to the door of Ameer al-Mu'mineen and there is a relationship, there's lineage there, they're from that same sort of elite class and Umar sends him to the back of the line, Bilal, Ammar, Suhaib are all up front and Abu Sufyan is grumbling about being sent back to the line, like this is, he's still not used to this, this is new and that's when Suhail ibn Amr radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu, he said to him عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِكُمْ فَغْضِبُوا You guys should just be mad at yourselves دُعِيَ الْقَوْم وَدُعِيْنَا That they were called and we were called فَأَسْرَعُوا وَأَطَعْنَا They rushed to accept Islam, we were slow to embrace Islam, they took the door, we shut the door, therefore we have no one to be mad at except for ourselves, accept it, so Abu Sufyan still has to kind of get used to this new reality, with that being said, what is the end of his life and I'm sorry I went over time, subhanAllah, but it's truly profound, he went out to Ash-Sham as a mujahid, he's one of those people who just knows the battlefield, he knows, he's a leader, he has to be a leader, the Prophet ﷺ gave him a leadership position, Abu Bakr gave him a leadership position, Umar gave him a leadership position in the battlefield, but he was very old and he's fighting in the battle of Yarmouk under Khalid, this battle where all of those leaders of Quraysh, subhanAllah, are going, many of them will die as shahadat, will die
as martyrs, their akhlaq have been completely refined, their noble manners are now on full display and Abu Sufyan on the battle of Yarmouk was fighting under the banner of his son, Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan, not to be confused for Yazid ibn Muawiyah, Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan, and as he was fighting under the banner of his son, he was calling out, he was seen calling out on the day of Yarmouk, Ya Nasrallah, Iqtarib, O victory of Allah, come near, Allah, Allah, Innakum Ansarul Islam, Wadaratul Arab, Allah, Allah, you are the helpers of Islam, the pride of the Arabs, Waha'ula Ansarul Shirk, Wadaratul Rum, these people are the helpers of polytheism and the pride of the Romans, Allahuma Hadha Yawmun Min Ayyamik, Allahuma Anzil Nasrak, O Allah, this is a day from your days, O Allah, let your victory come upon us, let your help come upon us, and the Muslims won, but guess what, Abu Sufyan was struck in his other eye, so subhanAllah, both of his eyes were struck Fi Sabilillah, same man that used all those years of his life planning against Islam, and when he passes away, he dies close to the age of a hundred years old, in the Khilafah of Uthman RadhiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu, his cousin, in Al Medina, his daughter Umm Habibah RadhiAllahu Anha, the wife of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, is the one who basically carried out the rituals surrounding his death, and that you know, taught through her own experience, how to grieve the loss of a parent, and here he is in Medina now, Salatul Janazah in Medina on Abu Sufyan, it is one of the weirdest moments in history for people, think about it, Abu Sufyan held this city under siege and tried to kill us all, and now he's being prayed Janazah upon in Medina and being buried in Al Baqir,
Abu Sufyan, who once was shouting out like a maniac, just a few miles away in Uhud, U'lu Hubal, may Hubal be exalted, has Uthman saying Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, and burying him amongst the campaigns of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, what does it show you dear brothers and sisters, the power of redemption, the wisdom of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, Ya Muqallibal Qulub Thabbit Qalbi Ala Deenik, may Allah turn, may Allah keep our hearts firm on his path, and turn the hearts even of people that we think are impossible to have their hearts turned, and that's why you don't give up on your da'wah and you show your noble ethics with that da'wah, and InshaAllah ta'ala next week we're actually going to talk about the other Abu Sufyan, there's an interesting thing that some of the Sahaba when they're named after someone, like Uthman ibn Mad'un and Uthman ibn Affan, they get overshadowed, there's another Abu Sufyan that we'll talk about next week InshaAllah, who is actually closer to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, we ask Allah to be pleased with the companions, to forgive us for our shortcomings, and we ask Allah to join us with our beloved Messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, Allahumma Ameen. JazakumAllahu Khaira, Wassalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
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