The beginning of obligations upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and then upon the people, and a brief account of the harm the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) suffered from his people in conveying the message

Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: When this verse was revealed: "And warn your nearest kinsfolk" [Surah al-Shu'ara: 214], (meaning:) warn your close relatives, and also the sincere group among them who are with you (peace and blessings be upon him), the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) went out, climbed (the hill of) al-Safa and called out loudly: "Wa sabahah!" (The danger of the morning!) The people said: Who is this calling? (Some) said: Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: All the people gathered around him (peace and blessings be upon him), and he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "O Banu so-and-so! O Banu so-and-so! O Banu Abd Manaf! O Banu Abd al-Muttalib! What do you think: if I told you that an army is coming from the foot of this mountain, would you believe me?" They said: We have never found you lying. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Indeed I am a warner to you of a severe punishment that is coming." Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: Abu Lahab said: May you perish! Is it for this that you gathered us? Then he stood up, and Allah Almighty revealed this surah: "Perish the two hands of Abu Lahab, and perish he" [Surah al-Masad: 1]. Al-A'mash recited it in this way to the end of the surah.

Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) said: When this verse was revealed to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): "And warn your nearest kinsfolk, and lower your wing to those of the believers who follow you" [Surah al-Shu'ara: 214-215], the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "I knew that if I began with my people with it, I would see from them what I dislike, so I kept silent about conveying it. Then Jibril (peace be upon him) came to me and said: O Muhammad! If you do not fulfil this command of your Lord, He will punish you." Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) related the story of gathering them and warning them.

Sayyiduna Rabi'ah bin Ibad al-Du'ali (may Allah be pleased with him) said: I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) at Dhu al-Majaz following people into their dwellings and calling them to the religion of Allah, and right behind him was a man calling out loudly to the people: "O people! Let him not deceive you regarding the religion of your forefathers." I said: Who is this? They said: This is his (peace and blessings be upon him) uncle, Abu Lahab.

Urwah bin al-Zubayr (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I asked Abdullah bin Amr bin al-As (may Allah be pleased with them both), saying: Tell me of the most severe harm the polytheists inflicted on the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). He said: Uqbah bin Abi Mu'ayt came while the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was praying near the Ka'bah. He wrapped a cloth around his neck and choked him hard. Then Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him) came, seized him by both shoulders, pushed him away from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: "Would you kill a man because he says, 'My Lord is Allah,' when he has brought you clear proofs from your Lord?" [Surah Ghafir: 28]

Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Once the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was praying near the Ka'bah, and the polytheists, gathered in their assemblies, were watching. One of them said: Do you not see this show-off? Which of you will go to the camel of the family of so-and-so, bring its dung, blood and entrails, then wait for him to go into prostration, and when he goes into prostration, place it between his shoulders? So the most wretched of the people got up and brought the entrails and the rest. When he (peace and blessings be upon him) went into prostration, that wretch placed it between his (peace and blessings be upon him) shoulders. He (peace and blessings be upon him) remained in prostration, and seeing this they began to laugh, until from intense laughter they started falling on one another. Then someone went to Sayyidah Fatimah (may Allah be pleased with her), who was a young girl at that time. She came running, removed the entrails from him (peace and blessings be upon him), and then began rebuking them (the polytheists). When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) had completed the prayer, he said three times: "O Allah, seize Quraysh!" Then he named those people and supplicated: "O Allah, seize Amr bin Hisham, Utbah bin Rabi'ah, al-Walid bin Utbah, Umayyah bin Khalaf, Uqbah bin Abi Mu'ayt and Umarah bin al-Walid, all of them!" Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) said: By Allah! On the day of Badr I saw all of them lying fallen (on the battlefield); then they were dragged and thrown into the well of Badr. After that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "A curse has been made to follow the people of the well (al-qalib)."

Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to be guarded until this verse was revealed: "O Messenger! Convey what has been sent down to you from your Lord; and if you do not, then you have not conveyed the message of your Lord. And Allah will protect you from the people" [Surah al-Ma'idah: 67]. Then he put his head out of his tent and said: "O people! Now go away, for Allah has taken it upon Himself to protect me."
Imam al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him) said: The meaning of this verse is that Allah Almighty will protect you from their killing, that is, from their killing you, so long as you continue to convey what has been sent down to you. So he conveyed what he had been commanded to convey, and the people began to mock him for it. Upon this Allah Almighty revealed this noble verse: "So proclaim openly what you are commanded and turn away from the polytheists. Indeed We suffice you against those who mock" [Surah al-Hijr: 94-95].

Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said concerning this statement of Allah Almighty: "Indeed We suffice you against those who mock" [Surah al-Hijr: 95]: Those who mocked him (peace and blessings be upon him) were these people: al-Walid bin al-Mughirah, al-Aswad bin Abd Yaghuth al-Zuhri, al-Aswad bin al-Muttalib (Abu Zam'ah) of Banu Asad bin Abd al-Uzza, al-Harith bin Aytal al-Sahmi and al-As bin Wa'il. After that Jibril (peace be upon him) came to him (peace and blessings be upon him), and he (peace and blessings be upon him) complained to Jibril (peace be upon him) about these people. Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) showed Jibril (peace be upon him) al-Walid bin al-Mughirah, and Jibril (peace be upon him) pointed to the thick vein of his arm. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "What have you done?" He said: You have been sufficed against him. Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) showed him al-Aswad bin al-Muttalib, and Jibril (peace be upon him) pointed to his eye. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "What have you done?" Jibril (peace be upon him) said: You have been saved (from his evil and harm). Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) showed him al-Aswad bin Abd Yaghuth al-Zuhri, and he pointed to his head. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "What have you done to him?" He said: You have been saved from him. Then al-As bin Wa'il passed by, and he pointed to the hollow of his foot. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "What have you done?" He said: Be at ease (and see their end). After that al-Walid bin al-Mughirah passed by a man of Banu Khuza'ah who was fixing the feathers of his arrow; the arrow struck al-Walid bin al-Mughirah's vein and cut it. As for al-Aswad bin al-Muttalib, he went blind: some say he simply went blind, and some say he alighted under an acacia tree and began saying to his sons: Save me! I am dying. They said: We see nothing from which to save you. He remained in this state until his eyes went blind. As for al-Aswad bin Abd Yaghuth al-Zuhri, sores broke out on his head and he died of those sores. Likewise yellow water (pus and the like) filled the belly of al-Harith bin Aytal, so that his excrement came out of his mouth, and he too died of it. As for al-As bin Wa'il, it happened to him as well: a thorn entered the head of this (insolent man) and spread through his whole head, and he died of it. Others have related that he set out towards Ta'if riding his donkey; on the way the donkey lay down with him on a thorny plant, a thorn pierced the sole of his foot, and that thorn became the cause of his death (and this accursed man too died).

Sayyiduna Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: Quraysh said to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): Pray to your Lord to turn (the hill of) al-Safa into gold for us, and then we will believe in you. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Very well, but will you really do so?" They said: Yes! (We will believe.) He (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed, and Jibril (peace be upon him) came to him and said: Allah Almighty sends you greetings of peace and says: If you (peace and blessings be upon him) wish, al-Safa will be turned into gold, and then whoever disbelieves after that, I will punish him with a punishment so severe that I will not punish anyone of the creation with the like of it; and if you wish, I will open for them the door of repentance and mercy. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "(O Allah,) open the door of repentance and mercy (and do not turn al-Safa into gold)."

Abu al-Aliyah (may Allah have mercy on him) said in explanation of this verse: "So be patient, as the messengers of firm resolve among the messengers were patient" [Surah al-Ahqaf: 35]: The messengers of firm resolve are these: Nuh, Hud and Ibrahim (peace be upon them). And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was commanded to be patient just as they were patient; they were three, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was the fourth. Nuh (peace be upon him) said: "O my people! If my staying (among you) and my reminding you of the signs of Allah is burdensome to you, then in Allah I have put my trust; so gather your plan and your partners, then let not your plan be obscure to you; then carry it out against me and give me no respite" [Surah Yunus: 71]. Nuh (peace be upon him), answering them fully, made the point of separation clear to them. Likewise Hud (peace be upon him) also answered them when they said to him: "We only say that one of our gods has seized you with evil" [Surah Hud: 54]; in reply he said: I call Allah to witness, and you too bear witness, that I am (free of what you associate with Him), so all of you together plot evil against me; and making the point of separation clear, he gave them a crushing reply. And Ibrahim (peace be upon him) said: "There has certainly been an excellent example for you in Ibrahim" [Surah al-Mumtahanah: 4] "(O Muslims! You have an excellent example in Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and those with him, when they all declared openly to their people: We are free of you and of all that you worship besides Allah)", and he made his position clear to them. And Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Say: I have been forbidden to worship those whom you call upon besides Allah" [Surah al-An'am: 56]. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) stood near the Ka'bah and began reciting this noble verse to the polytheists, and made his point of separation clear to them.