Hazrat Sayyedah Khadijah — Page 26
26 be upon him, said to his uncle Abu Taalib that God had revealed to him that the document written by the Quraish leaders against them had been eaten into by worms. He told him that all writing except the name of Allah had been badly damaged. Abu Taalib went to the Ka‘bah and addressed the people belonging to the Quraish tribe who happened to be there and said to them, ‘How long would you continue to conform to the condi- tions of your brutal agreement. My nephew had told me that God had destroyed the whole of the document except His own name. Let us examine the document and find out whether my nephew is right. ’ Someone brought the document and they found that with the exception of the name of God with which it began, the worms had damaged the rest of the writing. Observing this, five chiefs of the Quraish tribe, namely Hishaam bin ‘Amr, Zaheer bin Abu Umayyah, Mut‘am bin ‘Adi, Abul Bakhtaari and Zam‘ah bin Aswad, felt that this agreement should be terminated. They went to other Quraish chiefs. One of these five said to them, ‘Do you consider it right that you should pass your days in comfort while your brethren are forced to live in misery and distress. This pact is cruel so it should be done away with. ’ All of them agreed to put an end to the boycott. Abu Jahl, however, protested. He said, ‘This pact will continue and no one can terminate it. ’ Addressing Abu Jahl, one of them said, ‘This agreement is not binding any more. Even when it was written, we did not agree to it. ’ While this heated discussion was going on, Mut‘am bin ‘Adi seized the document and tore it to pieces. Thereafter he, along