Suhayl ibn Amr

ProfileSuhayl ibn Amr

Suhayl (may Allah be pleased with him) was of the clan of Amir ibn Lu'ayy of Quraysh, and was known as its chief speaker, a rich and eloquent man whom all the tribes respected. According to the early biographies, his children and his brothers accepted Islam early, and several of them migrated to Abyssinia, while he alone held out. According to the early biographies, one of his brothers, Sakran, was the first husband of Sawdah, who later married the Prophet ﷺ.

According to the early biographies, he went out to Badr with Quraysh, and his son Abdullah slipped away from the army by night and joined the Muslims. According to the early biographies, Suhayl was taken prisoner, and Umar asked the Prophet ﷺ to let him pull out his front teeth, so that his tongue would never again speak against the Muslims. The Prophet ﷺ said that he would not mutilate him, lest Allah mutilate him, and that perhaps one day his mouth would please Umar. According to the early biographies, he got away once, and was brought back with his hands tied, and Sawdah said that he should have died with honour, and the Prophet ﷺ told her not to stir him up against Allah and His Messenger. According to the early biographies, he was released after Mikraz ibn Hafs took his place in captivity and he went to Makkah and brought back his ransom.

Al-Miswar told that when the Prophet ﷺ was at Hudaybiyyah, Mikraz came, and the Prophet ﷺ said that he was a vicious man. While Mikraz was speaking, Suhayl ibn Amr came, and the Prophet ﷺ said that the matter had now become easy. Suhayl asked for a treaty, and when the Prophet ﷺ had the clerk write the usual opening, "In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful", Suhayl said that he did not know what "the Beneficent" meant, and asked for "In Your name, O Allah", as they used to write. The Muslims said that they would write nothing else, but the Prophet ﷺ had "In Your name, O Allah" written. Suhayl also would not let the treaty say that Muhammad was the Messenger of Allah (Sahih al-Bukhari). While they were still negotiating, his son Abu Jandal came to them in chains, and Suhayl said that the first term of the treaty was that he be returned to him. The Prophet ﷺ said that the treaty had not yet been written, and Suhayl refused to give way (Sahih al-Bukhari). Sahl ibn Hunayf told that he had seen himself on the day of Abu Jandal, and that if he could have refused the Messenger of Allah's ﷺ order then, he would have refused it (Sahih al-Bukhari).

According to the early biographies, at the Conquest he shut himself in his house, and sent Abdullah to ask the Prophet ﷺ for his safety. The Prophet ﷺ gave it. According to the early biographies, the Prophet ﷺ asked the people of Makkah what they thought he would do with them, and they said that they hoped for good, from a noble brother and the son of a noble brother. He said to them what Yusuf said to his brothers, that there was no blame on them that day. According to the early biographies, Suhayl accepted Islam after that. According to the early biographies, he was one of the new Muslims of Makkah who were given a hundred camels each after Hunayn.

According to the early biographies, he was not one of those who accepted Islam only to keep his place. He prayed much and fasted and gave in charity, and was seen weeping before the Ka'bah. According to the early biographies, he went to an Ansari man outside Makkah to learn the Qur'an, and when someone asked why he did not learn it from a man of Quraysh, he said that ignorance had made them lag behind others who had gone before them, and that he wished he had been among them.

According to the early biographies, when the Prophet ﷺ died and some in Makkah began to talk of returning to the old ways, so that its governor hid, Suhayl stood before the Ka'bah and told the people not to be the last to accept Islam and the first to leave it, and said that whoever worshipped Muhammad, he was dead, and whoever worshipped Allah, He lives and does not die. According to the early biographies, they came back to their senses.

According to the early biographies, he then went out to fight with his sons, and Abdullah was killed at Yamamah, and he went on to fight in Syria. The Prophet ﷺ said that the intercession of a martyr will be accepted for seventy of his family (Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih). According to the early biographies, Suhayl said that he hoped his son would intercede for him first. According to the early biographies, in the time of Umar, Suhayl, Abu Sufyan and al-Harith ibn Hisham were waiting at Umar's door, and Umar called in Bilal, Suhayb and Ammar first. Abu Sufyan was upset, but Suhayl told him that they had been called to Islam as the others had and had held back while the others hurried, and that the real worry was the gates of Paradise, where those men would go in first. According to the early biographies, he said that he would spend as long in the path of Allah as he had spent standing against it, until he was killed or died a stranger. According to the early biographies, he died in the plague of Amwas, and with him most of his family.

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