Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib Before the Najāshī

Speaker introduction: Umm Salamah (رضي الله عنها), who would later become a wife of the Prophet (SAW), is the primary narrator of the Abyssinian period. This account is recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. She said: "When we arrived in Abyssinia, we were treated with generous hospitality by the Najāshī. He granted us security and freedom of religion. We did not hear one single insult or slur against us from the people."

Quraysh's embassy:

When Quraysh learned of the good conditions the Muslims enjoyed in Abyssinia, they were enraged. They could not bear that the Muslims were living in dignity. They sent two emissaries: ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, who was not yet a Muslim but was regarded as the most cunning political mind in Mecca, and a companion (scholars differ; some say ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Rabīʿah, others say ʿUmārah ibn al-Walīd).

Their gifts: the primary export of Mecca was fine camel leather, distinctive and unavailable elsewhere. They loaded this and other luxury goods and traveled to Abyssinia.

On arrival, before seeing the Najāshī (whose real name was Aṣḥamah), ʿAmr went to every single minister (wazīr) in the court and gave each of them expensive gifts of leather. He openly told them: "Tomorrow we will speak to the Najāshī about a group of rebels in your midst. Support us in returning them." Open bribery. Then they presented the Najāshī with his gifts.

Their petition to the Najāshī: "Some foolish youth from our nation have emigrated to your land. They have left our religion but have not embraced yours. They have invented a new religion that nobody knows. The leaders of our people have sent us to return them. We know their faults best."

The bribed ministers, right on cue, stood and supported the request: "These are strangers. We don't know what they are. Return them."

The Najāshī said: "No. By Allāh, I cannot simply hand back people who have chosen my land for refuge, not without hearing their side." He was a just king.

Day 1, Jaʿfar's famous speech:

The Najāshī summoned the Muslims. The Quraysh emissaries entered first and prostrated, the court custom for all visitors. Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib entered erect, head held high, not bowing one inch. The ministers demanded: "Why have you not prostrated to the Najāshī?" Jaʿfar replied: "Our Prophet (SAW) has told us we can only prostrate to our Lord."

The Najāshī asked: "Tell me, what is this religion you have invented, that is neither your people's religion nor mine?"

Jaʿfar's response (narrated in Ibn Isḥāq, among the most celebrated passages in Seerah literature):

"Your Highness, we were a people steeped in Jāhiliyyah. We worshipped idols. We ate carrion. We committed fāḥishah (sexual immorality) without restraint. We had no laws. The strong among us devoured the weak. We broke the ties of kinship. We treated neighbors with contempt. We remained in this state until Allāh sent us a Messenger from among us, a man we knew, whose lineage we knew, whose truthfulness and honesty we had always known, who had never spoken one lie in his life. He invited us to worship one Allāh alone and to leave idol worship and the religion of our forefathers. He commanded us to be truthful when we speak, to fulfill our promises, to maintain the ties of kinship, to be good to our neighbors. He commanded us to avoid all evils. He forbade us from spilling blood, from seizing the property of orphans, from false testimony, from accusing others of adultery. He commanded us to pray, to fast, and to give charity. We believed in him. We followed him. We forbade what he forbade and made permissible what he allowed. But our people turned against us, torturing us, persecuting us, trying to force us back into idol worship. They made life unbearable. So when they did this to us, we left. And of all the lands we could have chosen, we chose yours. We put our trust in your generosity, Your Highness, that we would not be shown injustice in your land."

The Najāshī was moved. He said: "Do you have any revelation from this Prophet?" Jaʿfar said: "Yes." The Najāshī said: "Recite it to me."

Jaʿfar recited from the opening of Sūrat Maryam (سُورَة مَرْيَم, Qurʾān 19), the story of the Virgin Mary, the birth of ʿĪsā (Jesus), peace be upon him, in a booming, melodious recitation that filled the palace. For at least ten to fifteen minutes, the assembled Patriarchs (Baṭāriqah) and ministers fell silent. Ibn Isḥāq records that the Patriarchs, who did not even understand the Arabic, were moved to tears. When it was translated, the Najāshī himself began to cry. He said: "By God, this recitation and the messages of Moses and Jesus have sprung from the same fountain." He turned to the emissaries and said: "Go away from me. I will not hand these people back."

Day 2, ʿAmr's second gambit:

As they left in humiliation, ʿAmr whispered to his companion: "One more attempt." His companion (the gentler of the two) said, "Leave it. Even if we disagree, they are still our relatives." ʿAmr refused.

The next day he sought a fresh audience: "Your Highness, we forgot to mention something. These people say something blasphemous about Jesus Christ." The Najāshī summoned the Muslims again, this time urgently. The Muslims were more frightened than the day before. Once again Jaʿfar said: "We will say exactly what our Prophet told us to say."

Before the Najāshī he said: "We say that ʿĪsā (Jesus) is the ʿAbdullāh (servant of Allāh), Rasūlullāh (messenger of Allāh), Rūḥullāh (spirit from Allāh), and Kalimatullāh (word of Allāh), given to Maryam al-batūl al-ʿadhrāʾ, the pure and chaste Virgin, and that he was a righteous prophet."

He stopped there. He did not go on to say the Trinity is false or that calling Jesus the son of God is shirk, even though that is what the Qurʾān says. He gave only what was needed: truth, positively stated, appropriate to the audience. Speaker's note: this is a textbook lesson in ḥikma in daʿwah. You do not lie. You do not hide. You choose what your audience needs to hear, and you state it in the manner that best serves the truth and the relationship.

The Najāshī picked up a small twig from in front of him and held it up: "Wallāhi, what you have just said does not exceed what Jesus Christ said about himself by this much of a twig." The Najāshī was not a Trinitarian Christian. Like Heraclius, his contemporary and ruler of Rome, he held a non-mainstream Christology closer to the truth. When Jaʿfar spoke the truth, it confirmed what the Najāshī had believed in his heart all along.

He turned to ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ and said: "Begone. Take all your gifts back. I have no need of them." Every gift was returned, including those already distributed to the ministers. Umm Salamah concludes: "The two emissaries left humiliated, debased, and degraded, carrying back everything they had come with. And we remained in Abyssinia in the finest hospitality until we returned to the Prophet (SAW)."

Speaker note on using the system of the land: Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib used the legal system of a non-Muslim king, in a non-Islamic state, to fight for the rights of Muslims. He did not say: the ways of Najāshī are the ways of kufr, I refuse to participate. He appeared before the court, made his case, and defended his community through the mechanisms available to him. The speaker explicitly says this is a Seerah lesson for Muslims living in non-Muslim societies: use the system, the courts, the media, the public process, as Jaʿfar used his system, to defend rights and fight oppression.