Najrān accepts Islam, and the last letter of the Prophet ﷺ

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Late in the ninth year the Prophet ﷺ sent many Companions out as governors and teachers of Islam, especially to the north and the south of the kingdom. Down south in particular Islam seemed to flourish, and people accepted it readily; Muʿādh ibn Jabal was among those he sent to Yemen, and, walking with him, told him he might not see him again. One last great conversion came at the turn into the tenth year, in the province of Najrān, a lush, green country south of the Ḥijāz and above Yemen, today the southernmost region of Saudi Arabia, its people distinct even in complexion and accent.

❧Khālid's three days

The Prophet ﷺ sent Khālid ibn al-Walīd there at the start of the tenth year, charging him: do not attack them until you have given them three days, and their choice, accept Islam; or, if they are Jews or Christians, pay the jizyah; or leave, for idolaters may not remain. It is a mercy of the Sharīʿah to grant time for so momentous a decision. Khālid sent criers into the towns with these options, and to his own bewilderment the entire province embraced Islam with no fighting at all. He wrote back, "O Messenger of Allāh, the people of Najrān have all accepted Islam, I brought an army and there is no war; what do I do now?" And the Prophet ﷺ replied: send me a delegation, that I may test them, see whether they are truly Muslim, and teach them.

❧"You look like men of Hind"

When the delegation arrived, the Prophet ﷺ did not recognise them and asked, مَنِ الْقَوْمُ, "who are the people?", the courteous Arabic way of saying "whom have I the pleasure of receiving?", and added, كَأَنَّكُمْ رِجَالٌ مِنَ الْهِنْدِ, "it is as though you are men of India." Ibn Isḥāq records it, and the shaykh admits he tried all day and could not resolve it: no Indian is known ever to have reached Mecca in the Prophet's ﷺ lifetime, whatever some might wish to believe, so perhaps it was the distinct complexion of the people of Najrān, or their round, curly hairstyle, that drew the comparison. He put some pointed, even slightly harsh, questions to them, testing their faith, and they came through with flying colours, plainly Muslim. Then he asked them the secret of why they always prevailed against any who attacked them, and they gave two reasons: "we are always united, once we decide, we never quarrel among ourselves, we go as one team"; and "we never wrong anyone; only if we are first wronged do we strike back, otherwise we are never oppressors." A lesson, the shaykh notes, worthy of any class on leadership: teamwork, and never taking the rights of others.

❧The last letter the Prophet ﷺ ever dictated

The Prophet ﷺ then appointed ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm al-Anṣārī over Najrān as its religious leader and governor, and sent with him, about a month before he passed away, a letter that is among the most famous documents of the whole Sīrah, for it was the last letter he ever dictated: over a page of waṣāyā, of instructions on how to lead and teach the new Muslims. And one line in it, لَا يَمَسُّ الْقُرْآنَ إِلَّا طَاهِرٌ, "none touches the Qurʾān except one who is pure", became the principal evidence of the majority of the schools that one must have wuḍūʾ to touch the muṣḥaf. So Najrān, whose Christians had earlier come for the mubāhalah, was the last major province of the Ḥijāz to enter Islam, and only months before the Prophet ﷺ passed away.