Ta'if: The Hardest Day

With Makkah shut, the Prophet ﷺ walked to Ta'if, the walled garden-city in the mountains, to call its leading tribe of Thaqif to Allah and ask their protection. The three brothers who led the city competed in the ugliness of their refusals; one said: could Allah find no one but you to send? They refused him protection, refused him even discretion, and set their slaves and street-boys on him.

They lined his ﷺ way out of the city, jeering and throwing stones until his sandals ran with blood. Zayd ibn Harithah (ra), shielding him with his body, was gashed on the head. Miles on, the two took refuge in an orchard, and there, bleeding and alone, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ raised the du'a that believers in despair have whispered ever since: O Allah, to You I complain of my weakness, my scarcity of resources and my insignificance before men. O Most Merciful of the merciful, You are the Lord of the weak, and You are my Lord... if You are not angry with me, I do not care, but Your protection is more encompassing for me.

Aisha (ra) once asked him: was any day harder upon you than Uhud? He answered: what I met from your people, and the hardest of it was the day of Aqabah, at Ta'if. Then he told her what happened on the road back: Jibril (as) called to him with the angel of the mountains, who said: O Muhammad, if you wish, I will bring the two mountains together upon them. And the man with blood still on his feet replied: rather, I hope that Allah will bring forth from their descendants those who worship Allah alone, associating nothing with Him.

Heaven consoled him again on that road. Resting at Nakhlah, he ﷺ recited Qur'an in the night prayer, and a company of the jinn passed, listened, believed, and returned to their people as warners; the Prophet ﷺ knew of it only when revelation told him. Rejected by the men of two cities in one season, he had gained believers from another creation entirely.

Within two years, the same Ta'if road would carry him toward Madinah and everything that followed. And within his own lifetime, Thaqif of Ta'if embraced Islam, the descendants he ﷺ had hoped for already arriving.