Two Cousins Seek Forgiveness

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

As the army neared Makkah, two men slipped out in fear to embrace Islam before the city fell, both first cousins of the Prophet ﷺ, and both among the bitterest mockers of his message. Abū Sufyān ibn al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, son of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib's eldest, had made poetry against the Prophet ﷺ throughout the Meccan years. ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Umayyah, cousin through his mother ʿĀtikah bint ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, and full brother of Umm Salamah by another mother, had once challenged the Prophet ﷺ before all Quraysh: "I will never believe until you climb a ladder to the sky and bring down a book, and even then I doubt I would believe", the very mockery the Qurʾān records, أَوْ تَرْقَىٰ فِي السَّمَاءِ (17:93). These were cousins he had grown up beside, now slandering him in public.

❧Refused, Then Received

ʿAbdullāh went to his sister Umm Salamah, who pitied him and entered the Prophet's ﷺ tent: "O Messenger of Allāh, your cousin and your cousin, is there anything you would grant them?" He answered, لَا حَاجَةَ لِي فِيهِمَا, "I have no need of them; I do not wish to see them." This blunt harshness may jar against his mercy, but there is wisdom in it: a test of their sincerity. The half-sincere, met with rejection, grow arrogant and turn away; the true believer only insists and pleads, as Ādam said, "Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves," while Iblīs answered with pride. So Abū Sufyān, the elder, raised his voice for the Prophet ﷺ to hear, lifted his little son by the hand, and swore that if refused he and the boy would walk into the desert to die. فَرَقَّ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ لَهُمَا, the Prophet ﷺ softened toward them; in the end they were his blood. He let them in, and Abū Sufyān recited a long poem, one line of which ran, هَدَانِي هَادٍ غَيْرُ نَفْسِي, "A guide other than myself led me to Allah, a guide whom I had driven off at every turn." At that the Prophet ﷺ tapped his chest and said, "Yes, by Allāh, you repelled me every time you could." He accepted their repentance, and the two became Muslim.