Abu Jandal Is Returned

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

As Suhayl's return-of-defectors clause was still being argued, before it was even written down, his own tortured son Abū Jandal stumbled into the camp in chains, crying for rescue, the marks of severe torture plain on his exposed chest. Suhayl declared him the first man to whom the clause would apply. The Prophet ﷺ objected that nothing had yet been written, but Suhayl swore that if Abū Jandal were not returned, there would be no treaty at all. What followed, Dr. Qadhi notes, is unmatched anywhere else in the Sīrah: the Prophet ﷺ pleaded with Suhayl repeatedly, "hab-hu lī" (هَبْهُ لِي, "gift him to me"), just this one exception before the clause takes effect, and Suhayl refused each time, until the Prophet ﷺ said simply, "bal ifʿal" (بَلِ افْعَلْ, "then just do it"). Suhayl would not.

The deadlock broke only when Mikraz, Suhayl's companion, intervened to guarantee that Abū Jandal, though returned, would no longer be tortured. Watching the negotiation turn against him, Abū Jandal cried out to the Muslims: would they hand him back to the polytheists after he had come to them as a believer, and did they not see what had been done to him? The Prophet ﷺ answered him directly: "Iṣbir yā Abā Jandal, be patient, for Allah will make for you a way out and a relief" (اصْبِرْ يَا أَبَا جَنْدَلَ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ جَاعِلٌ لَكَ مَخْرَجًا وَسَبِيلًا). ʿUmar, unable to bear it, walked over and told Abū Jandal to be patient too, then added that the polytheists' blood was worth nothing, glancing pointedly at his own sword, an unspoken invitation to strike his captors. But Abū Jandal, facing his own father among them, did not take it, and was led back to Makkah in his chains, under Mikraz's guarantee against further torture. Dr. Qadhi highlights the depth of Abū Jandal's trial: to reach the Prophet ﷺ he believed in, believe salvation was at hand, and be told to go back, and still hold firm.