The Cry from Safa

The command came to warn his nearest kin and to proclaim openly what he had been ordered. So one morning the Prophet ﷺ climbed the hill of Safa beside the Ka'bah and called out: Ya sabahah! It was the cry Arabs reserved for imminent danger, a raid at dawn, and the clans of Quraysh hurried to him, sending messengers if they could not come themselves.

When they had gathered, he asked them a question. If I told you that horsemen were in the valley behind this hill about to attack you, would you believe me? They answered with one voice: yes; we have never known you to tell anything but truth. Twenty years of being al-Amin stood in the witness box at that moment, and the whole city testified.

Then hear me, he ﷺ said: I am a warner to you before a severe punishment. I call you to say there is no god but Allah, and to abandon what you worship besides Him. The silence that followed was broken by his own uncle, Abu Lahab, who shouted: may you perish! Is this what you gathered us for? And the crowd dispersed.

Heaven answered the insult swiftly and forever. A surah came down bearing Abu Lahab's name: may the hands of Abu Lahab perish, and may he perish; his wealth will not avail him, nor what he earned. It remains recited in prayer across the earth fourteen centuries later, while everything Abu Lahab owned has turned to dust.

The call was now public, and the battle lines were drawn within his own family: an uncle, Abu Talib, who would shield him without believing, and an uncle, Abu Lahab, who believed nothing and shielded no one.