ʿAbbâs prevented him and he [abu-Sufyân] embraced Islâm and presented himself before the Prophet. When the time for morning prayer came, the Moslems bestirred themselves for ablution before prayer. "What is the matter?" said abu-Sufyân to al-ʿAbbâs ibn-ʿAbd-al-Muṭṭalib, "Do they mean to kill me?" "No," answered al-ʿAbbâs, "they have risen for prayer." As they began to pray, abu-Sufyân noticed that when the Prophet knelt they knelt; when he prostrated himself, they prostrated themselves; upon which he remarked, "By Allah I never saw, as I did to-day, the submissiveness of a people coming from here and there—not even in the case of the noble Persians, or the Greeks who have long fore-locks."[1]
Al-ʿAbbâs asked the Prophet saying, "Send me to the people of Makkah that I may invite them to Islâm." No sooner had the Prophet sent him than he called him back saying, "Bring my uncle back to me, that the 'polytheists' may not kill him." Al-ʿAbbâs, however, refused to return until he came to Makkah and made the following statement: "O ye people, embrace Islâm and ye shall be safe. Ye have been surrounded on all sides. Ye are confronted by a hard case that is beyond your power.[2] Here is Khâlid in the lower part of Makkah, there is az-Zubair in the upper part of it, and there is the Prophet of Allah at the head of the Emigrants, Anṣâr and Khuzâʿah." To this Ḳuraish replied, "And what are Khuzâʿah with their mutilated noses!"
The entrance into Makkah. ʿAbd-al-Wâḥid ibn-Ghiyâth from abu-Hurairah:—The spokesman of Khuzâʿah repeated the following verse before the Prophet:
