The Prophet ﷺ Under Their Hands

Clan protection spared the Prophet ﷺ from the boulder and the brand, but not from humiliation. Once, as he ﷺ prostrated in prayer beside the Ka'bah, Abu Jahl's circle dared one of their own, and Uqbah ibn Abi Mu'ayt brought the birth-filth of a slaughtered camel and dumped it on his back between his shoulders as he lay in sujud. They laughed until they fell over one another. He ﷺ remained in prostration, unable to rise, until his young daughter Fatimah (ra) came running, removed it, and stood cursing them with a child's fearless grief.

He ﷺ completed his prayer. Then he raised his voice and prayed against the mockers by name, and Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (ra), who witnessed it as a youth, testified decades later: I saw every man he named lying dead on the field of Badr.

Another day Uqbah went further: he seized the Prophet ﷺ by his garment and twisted it around his neck, choking him violently, until Abu Bakr (ra) threw himself between them, shoving the man back and crying the words the Qur'an records of the believer of Pharaoh's house: would you kill a man for saying, my Lord is Allah, when he has brought you clear proofs from your Lord?

That was the pattern of those years: cruelty theatrical enough to entertain the chiefs, and courage, often Abu Bakr's (ra), interposing a frail body between the Messenger ﷺ and the mob. Asked late in life which was the worst thing the polytheists ever did, Abdullah ibn Amr (ra) told the story of the choking, and of Abu Bakr (ra) weeping as he pushed them away.

Through all of it, no curse on the city left his ﷺ lips. The man whose back they soiled at prostration would one day enter that same city as its conqueror, and command a general amnesty.