Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 330
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 330 city; but now you and your faith and your city are dearer to me than everything else. ’ Sometime later, Thumamah submitted to the Holy Prophet, ‘Messenger of Allah, when I was captured I was on my way to the Ka’aba for the performance of Umra. Now, what is your pleasure concerning me?’ The Holy Prophet told him that he was free to proceed on his original errand, and gave him his blessings, and Thumamah left for Mecca. Having arrived in Mecca and performed the Umra he began to propagate Islam openly in Mecca. Quraish were outraged and seized him, and would have put an end to him but for the con sideration that he was a chief of Yamamah and they had close commercial relations with Yamamah. So they rebuked him and let him go. When he was departing, he told Quraish that he would not let a grain of corn come to them from Yamamah unless the Holy Proph et permitted it. Arriving in Yamamah, he put his threat into effect and stopped the movement of the caravans of Quraish through Yamamah. As the greater part of the food supply of Mecca came from or through Yamamah, Quraish soon began to feel the pinch seve rely and they wrote to the Holy Prophet that, having regard to the kinship between them, he might be pleased to intervene and procure them relief from their distress. They followed this up by sending Abu Sufyan to Medina who described their distress to the Holy Prophet and sought his compassionate intervention, whereupon the Holy Prophet sent directions to Thumamah not to interfere with the movement of food supplies to Mecca, and the situation was thus relieved. Thumamah continued the propagation of Islam zealously