Mu'jam Kabir Tabarani 769 — The first thing that drew me towards Islam

Sayyiduna Abu Dharr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The first thing that drew me towards Islam was this: we were an Arab people, and a year of drought struck us. So I took my mother and my brother, whose name was Unays, to some in-laws of ours in the upper part of Najd. When we stayed with them, they treated us with honour. When a man of the tribe saw this, he went to my maternal uncle and said: Do you know that Unays visits your family in your absence? This pierced his heart. He came back from tending my camels, and I found him sad and weeping. I asked: Uncle, why are you weeping? He told me the matter. I said: May Allah forbid that! We detest indecency, even though the times have brought us (into hardship). You have clouded the purity of the kindness with which you first received us, and there is no way for us to remain together. So I set off with my mother and my brother until we halted near Makkah. My brother said: I will compete (in poetry) with a poet. I said: Do not do it. But stubbornness drove him out, until he competed with Durayd bin al-Simmah, staking his herd against his herd. By Allah, Durayd was a better poet than my brother on that day. Then the two of them took al-Khansa' as judge, and she preferred my brother over Durayd. The reason was that Durayd had asked her father for her hand, and she had said: He is an old man, I have no need of him; and she bore a grudge against him for that. So we added his herd to our herd, and we came to have a large herd. Then I came to Makkah and went first to al-Safa, and the men of Quraysh were there. It had reached me that there was a renegade (sabi'), or a madman, or a poet, or a sorcerer there. So I asked: Where is this man you speak of? They said: There he is, where you see. I turned towards him, and by Allah, I had not gone a stone's throw from them before the people fell upon me with every bone, stone and clod of earth, and drenched me in my own blood. So I came to the House (the Ka'bah) and went in between the coverings and the building, and fasted there for thirty days, neither eating nor drinking anything except the water of Zamzam. Then, on a bright moonlit night, two women of Khuza'ah came and circumambulated the House, then they mentioned Isaf and Na'ilah, two idols which they used to worship. So I put my head out from under the coverings and said: Put one of them on top of the other. The two of them became angry and said: By Allah, if our men were present, you would not have said this. Then the two of them turned away, and I followed in their footsteps until they met the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "Who are you, where are you from, where have you come from, and what has brought you?" They told him the whole story. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "Where did you leave the renegade?" They said: We left him between the coverings and the building. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "Did he say anything to you?" They said: Yes, a word that fills the mouth. the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) smiled, then the two of them slipped away. I went forward towards the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and greeted him with salam. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Who are you, from which tribe are you, where are you from, where have you come from, and what has brought you?" I began to tell him the whole story. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "From where did you eat and drink?" I said: From the water of Zamzam. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Indeed, it is a nourishing food." Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) was with him at that time, and he said: O Messenger of Allah, permit me to give him a meal. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Very well. Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) set off walking, and Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) took me by the hand, until the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) stopped at the door of Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him). Then Sayyiduna Abu Bakr entered his house and brought raisins from the raisins of Ta'if, and began giving them to us handful by handful, and we kept eating them until we were full. Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said to me: "O Abu Dharr." I said: At your service. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Indeed, a land has been shown to me which has water; I think it is none other than Tihamah. Go out to your people and invite them to what you have entered." So I went to my mother and my brother and told them the whole story. They said: We have no aversion to the religion you have entered; and so the two of them became Muslims. Then we set off and reached Madinah, and I told my people. They said: We have believed you, but we want to meet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). So when we came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), we met him, and the tribe of Ghifar said: O Messenger of Allah, Abu Dharr has told us what you told him, and we have become Muslims and bear witness that you are the Messenger of Allah. Then the tribes of Aslam and Khuza'ah came forward and said: O Messenger of Allah, we too desire it, and we have entered what our brothers and allies have entered. the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Aslam, Allah has granted it safety; and Ghifar, Allah has forgiven it." Then Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) took me by the hand and said: O Abu Dharr. I said: At your service, O Abu Bakr. He asked: Did you worship any deity in your days of ignorance (Jahiliyyah)? I said: Yes. I would stand facing the sun and keep praying until its heat hurt me, then I would fall down as if I were a worn-out cloth. He asked: Then which direction did you face? I said: I do not know, except wherever Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, turned me, until Allah opened the way of Islam for me.