The journey to Ta'if

Part oneThe road up to Ta'if

Ta'if lies about seventy kilometres south-east of Makkah, high in the Sarawat mountains, more than a kilometre above the heat of the Makkan valley. Its air is cooler, and its orchards and vineyards fed the markets below. Wealthy families of the Quraysh kept gardens there and went up to escape the summer. The town belonged to the tribe of Thaqif, who were strong, well off and not under Makkan control.

That made it a real hope. The Prophet ﷺ had spent ten years calling his own tribe, and the leaders of the Quraysh had closed their ears. If the Thaqif would believe, or even give him safe ground to preach, the message would have somewhere to stand. He went on foot, with his freed servant Zayd ibn Harithah (may Allah be pleased with him) at his side.

In Ta'if he went first to the three brothers who led the Thaqif, Abd Yalayl, Mas'ud and Habib. He told them who he was, spoke of Allah, and asked for their help. Their answers were cold. One said he would tear down the covering of the Kaaba if Allah had really sent him. Another asked whether Allah could not have found someone better. The third said he would not speak with him at all. Then they told him to leave, and not to let their people hear him.

He stayed some days and spoke to others in the town, but the leaders were not content to ignore him. They set their slaves and rougher men on him, and as he left, the crowd lined the road, shouting and throwing stones. Zayd tried to shield him and was wounded himself. The Prophet ﷺ was bleeding from his feet when he finally got clear of the town.

Part twoA vineyard, and an answer

He and Zayd made their way to a vineyard a short distance outside the town and rested against its wall. It belonged to Utbah and Shaybah, sons of Rabi'ah, two of the Quraysh leaders who had opposed him hardest in Makkah. They watched him from where they stood. Even they felt some pity for the state he was in.

They sent a servant with a tray of grapes. This was Addas, a Christian man from Nineveh, the old city on the Tigris. The Prophet ﷺ said the name of Allah before he ate, which struck Addas as unusual in that land. When he learned where Addas was from, he said that Nineveh was the town of the righteous Yunus ibn Matta, and that Yunus (peace be upon him) was a prophet like himself. Addas was astonished. He bent and kissed the Prophet ﷺ on the head and hands, and the two brothers who owned the vineyard warned him not to let this man draw him away from his religion.

Then the Prophet ﷺ turned to Allah in a supplication that Muslims have remembered ever since. He spoke of his own weakness and how little strength he had with people, and asked for mercy from the Lord of the weak. He said that if Allah was not displeased with him, then nothing else mattered. It is one of the most humble prayers in the seerah.

Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) once asked him whether he had known a day harder than the day of Uhud. He answered that the hardest had been the day he went to the people of Ta'if. He had walked away so troubled that he did not come to himself until he reached Qarn al-Manazil, a place on the road. There Jibril (peace be upon him) came to him with the angel in charge of the mountains, who offered, if he wished, to bring the two mountains that stand over Makkah down on the people who had rejected him. The Prophet ﷺ refused. He said that he hoped Allah would bring from their children people who worshipped Allah alone and set up nothing beside Him. He had been stoned that morning, and his first thought was for their descendants.

From the hadith

Narrated `Aisha:

That she asked the Prophet (ﷺ) , 'Have you encountered a day harder than the day of the battle) of Uhud?" The Prophet (ﷺ) replied, "Your tribes have troubled me a lot, and the worse trouble was the trouble on the day of 'Aqaba when I presented myself to Ibn `Abd-Yalail bin `Abd-Kulal and he did not respond to my demand. So I departed, overwhelmed with excessive sorrow, and proceeded on, and could not relax till I found myself at Qarnath-Tha-alib where I lifted my head towards the sky to see a cloud shading me unexpectedly. I looked up and saw Gabriel in it. He called me saying, 'Allah has heard your people's saying to you, and what they have replied back to you, Allah has sent the Angel of the Mountains to you so that you may order him to do whatever you wish to these people.' The Angel of the Mountains called and greeted me, and then said, "O Muhammad! Order what you wish. If you like, I will let Al-Akh-Shabain (i.e. two mountains) fall on them." The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "No but I hope that Allah will let them beget children who will worship Allah Alone, and will worship None besides Him."

The hope was not wasted. A decade later, in 9 AH, a delegation from Ta'if came to Madinah, and the Thaqif accepted Islam.

Part threeBack to Makkah

As he travelled home, he stopped in the valley of Nakhla to pray at night. A group of jinn heard him reciting the Quran and believed. Surah al-Jinn tells of this. It was a small sign that the message was reaching beings he could not see, at a moment when the people he could see had shut him out.

From the Quran

قُلْ أُوحِىَ إِلَىَّ أَنَّهُ ٱسْتَمَعَ نَفَرٌ مِّنَ ٱلْجِنِّ فَقَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا سَمِعْنَا قُرْءَانًا عَجَبًا ۝١ يَهْدِىٓ إِلَى ٱلرُّشْدِ فَـَٔامَنَّا بِهِۦ ۖ وَلَن نُّشْرِكَ بِرَبِّنَآ أَحَدًا ۝٢

¹Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “It has been revealed to me that a group of jinn listened ˹to the Quran,˺ and said ˹to their fellow jinn˺: ‘Indeed, we have heard a wondrous recitation. ²It leads to Right Guidance so we believed in it, and we will never associate anyone with our Lord ˹in worship˺.

At the edge of Makkah, a harder problem waited. He could not simply walk back in, because he was no longer under a chief's protection. He sent word asking for protection from al-Akhnas ibn Shurayq and then from Suhayl ibn Amr, and both declined. Then he asked Mut'im ibn Adi, a leader of the Banu Nawfal. Mut'im was not a Muslim, but he agreed.

The next morning Mut'im and his sons put on their arms and escorted the Prophet ﷺ to the Kaaba, where he made his circuits. Mut'im declared that he had given him his protection, and the Quraysh respected a spoken guarantee. When they asked whether he had become a follower, he said that he had only given protection. The Prophet ﷺ was safe in his own city again.

He did not forget it. Years later, when prisoners were taken at Badr, he said that if Mut'im had been alive and had asked him to free them, he would have done so. Mut'im had died by then, still not a Muslim. He had stood by the Prophet ﷺ at a moment when his own tribe would not.

He had been stoned that morning, and his first thought was for their descendants.

More on How to Muslim

• quran.howtomuslim.orgSurah al-Jinn, mappedJinn who listened to the Quran on the road back from Ta'if.
• guide.howtomuslim.orgDuas for emotionsDuas for hard days.

WatchLectures for this chapter

Lecture Towards EternityO Messenger, Ep. 4: No Food, No Mercy to the Prophet's Family (opens on YouTube)

Lecture Islamic GuidanceThe Betrayal Of Ta'if (Seerah of Muhammad, part 35) (opens on YouTube)

The mapWhere it happened

• Makkah
• Nakhla
• Qarn al-Manazil
• Ta'if

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter