Quraysh vs. the Quran: The Ban on Public Recitation

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم began reciting the Quran in public, at the Kaʿbah, in the marketplace, Quraysh responded with a tactic that has been used against truth in every age: they drowned it out.

Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما narrates that whenever the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم raised his voice with the Quran near the Kaʿbah, Quraysh would immediately begin shouting, yelling, screaming, cursing the One who revealed it and the one upon whom it was revealed. They would not allow anyone to listen. The result: if someone wanted to hear the Quran, he had to pretend he wasn't listening and try to catch words over the din of Quraysh's noise.

Allah responded by calibrating the approach: وَلَا تَجْهَرْ بِصَلَاتِكَ وَلَا تُخَافِتْ بِهَا وَابْتَغِ بَيْنَ ذَٰلِكَ سَبِيلًا, "Do not recite your prayer loudly, and do not make it silent, seek a middle path between them." (al-Isrāʾ 17:110). The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم had wanted to raise his voice above Quraysh; Allah said no. Your task is to recite as it should be recited. The message will spread regardless.

Allah also addressed their tactic directly in Sūrat Fuṣṣilat: وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لَا تَسْمَعُوا لِهَٰذَا الْقُرْآنِ وَالْغَوْا فِيهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَغْلِبُونَ, "Those who disbelieve say: Do not listen to this Quran, and talk nonsense during it so that perhaps you will overcome it." (Fuṣṣilat 41:26). Their own strategy was documented in the Quran.

❧Ibn Masʿūd's first public recitation

In those early days, the companions gathered in the house of al-Arqam ibn Abī al-Arqam, Dār al-Arqam, which served as a private meeting place and school of early Islam. The question was raised: no one other than the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم had yet recited the Quran publicly. Who would volunteer?

ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه said: "I volunteer."

The companions hesitated. They said: "O Ibn Masʿūd, we want someone of Quraysh. You are not Qurashī, you are not even Makkī. You have no ʿashīrah, no tribe here, no one to protect you." The system of tribal protection, that passport of Meccan society, meant that a Qurashī could withstand a beating because his tribe stood behind him. Ibn Masʿūd had no such backing. He was a Yemeni, from the tribe of Huzayl, a hired shepherd who happened to be one of the greatest Muslims alive.

He said: "I put my trust in Allah. Allah will protect me." And they could not argue with that.

The next morning, when Quraysh had gathered in their usual afternoon majlis around the Kaʿbah, their coffee-shop gathering, where the city's news and gossip passed, Ibn Masʿūd walked to the Maqām of Ibrāhīm and began reciting Sūrat al-Raḥmān in a loud, beautiful voice. Ibn Masʿūd was the Qāriʾ of the Ṣaḥābah, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم himself said: "If you want to recite the Quran as it was revealed, fresh and ripe as it came down: غَضًّا طَرِيًّا كَمَا أُنْزِلَ, take it from Ibn Umm ʿAbd." (Ibn Masʿūd's kunya from his mother). He had learnt more than seventy sūrahs directly from the mouth of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم.

The Quraysh had never heard tilāwah before, not like this. The whole art of tajwīd, the ghunnas and mudūd, the cadences and rhythms of Quranic recitation, the Arabs did not speak that way. It was something different, something mesmerizing. People began gathering, pulling each other to listen. "What is he reciting?" "What is this?" The beauty was arresting even for those who were hostile to the message.

Then someone recognized it: "Oh, this is what Muḥammad claims was revealed to him." And immediately, some of them pounced on Ibn Masʿūd. Because he had no tribal protection, no one in Makkah was obligated to defend him. They began beating him, hitting him with their sandals. He could not finish two pages of Sūrat al-Raḥmān before they drove him away.

He came back to the companions bloodied, bruised, battered. They said: "Wallāhi, this is exactly what we feared. This is why we didn't want you to go."

Ibn Masʿūd looked at them and said: "Wallāhi, nothing has increased after today except my contempt for Quraysh. And I am willing to go and do it again tomorrow! Come, just challenge me!"

The companions held him back: "Enough, Ibn Masʿūd. You have distressed them. They have heard the Quran and it has disturbed them. That is enough."

He became the first person after the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم to recite the Quran publicly, in Makkah, at the Maqām of Ibrāhīm, with his own blood as the price.

❧The three leaders who came in the night

Quraysh had banned public recitation. But there was one time the Quran was heard in the dead of night, in the private Tahajjud of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم.

Makkah was a small village. Less than a thousand inhabitants. At 3 and 4 AM, the city was silent. And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم would pray Tahajjud in his home, raising his voice with the Quran. If you were awake and near his house, you could hear it, if you wanted to.

It so happened that three of the most senior leaders of Quraysh, Abū Jahl, Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb, and al-Akhnas ibn Sharīq, each came on their own, separately, to a spot near the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم house to listen to his recitation in secret. They could not do it in public; they had a reputation to maintain. But alone, in the darkness, something drew them.

The first morning, when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم stopped reciting at pre-Fajr, they each began heading home, and bumped into one another. Three senior men of Quraysh, each returning from the same direction at 4 AM. The embarrassment was enormous. They each made an excuse and went their way.

The second night: the same thing. Each came again, separately, listened all night, and again met each other at Fajr.

The third night: again.

After the third morning's awkward encounter, they said to each other: "If our people found out that we were doing this, we would lose all credibility. Let us make a promise to each other and to Allah, we will not come again."

But the morning after, the fourth day, al-Akhnas went privately to Abū Sufyān and asked him: "O Abū Sufyān, what is your honest opinion of what we heard?"

Abū Sufyān was embarrassed to speak first. "Tell me your opinion first." He didn't want any phrase of his to slip out. He was a politician's politician, his son Muʿāwiyah would one day found the Umayyad Dynasty, and he never spoke unguarded. So al-Akhnas gave his opinion first: "Wallāhi, it seems to be al-Ḥaqq. It seems to be the Truth."

Abū Sufyān then gave a vague, careful answer: "Some of what he said I understood fully. Other parts were beyond my comprehension." He didn't commit. He would eventually accept Islam at the Conquest of Makkah.

Then al-Akhnas went to Abū Jahl and asked him directly: "What is your honest verdict?"

And Abū Jahl, unlike Abū Sufyān, gave the most honest answer of all. He did not hide. He said:

"The Banū Manāf and us, we have always been in competition. When they gave food to the pilgrims, we gave food. When they gave water, we gave water. When they showed bravery, we showed bravery. We were like two racehorses running neck-and-neck, right at the finish line, ka farasay rihān (كَفَرَسَيْ رِهَان). And now they come and tell us that they have a Prophet from the heavens to whom divine revelation comes. How do I compete with that? Wallāhi, as long as I live, I will never follow him."

The reason Abū Jahl rejected Islam was not because he thought it was false. He knew it was true. He rejected it because of kibr, arrogance about his lineage, his tribe, his sense of competition. The same root reason Abū Ṭālib couldn't say the Kalimah: nasab, prestige, the legacy of the forefathers. As the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: Abū Jahl is the Firʿawn of this Ummah.