As the Prophet (peace be upon him) continued to preach his message in Makkah, winning new followers, the Quraysh chiefs felt that this could spell trouble for them. Some of them thought that it would be useful for them to speak to Muhammad (peace be upon him) in an attempt to persuade him to stop his effort. One day when many of their chiefs were present, they sent a messenger to tell Muhammad that the leaders of his people wished to speak to him. He came quickly, hoping that they might have had a change of heart about Islam, realizing its truth. Nothing would have given him greater pleasure, since he loved his people and cared for their well-being. However, their spokesmen were quick to show that the discussion was bound to be futile. First they appraised the situation in Makkah before repeating old offers: “No man in the history of the Arab nation has ever caused his community a problem like the one you have caused... Indeed, you have been the cause of every bad thing in the relationship between you and us. Nevertheless, we have the following offer to make to you: If you have started this matter of yours in order to become rich, we will pay you from our own money until you are the wealthiest among us. If it is honor that you are seeking, we are prepared to make you our leader and if you seek a kingdom, we make you our king. On the other hand, if what you experience is some sort of evil spirit which you cannot control, we will seek medical treatment for you and will pay whatever it costs, until you have been cured or until we have done everything within our power.”
Needless to say, the Quraysh wanted to test the Prophet’s resolve, not to make him any realistic or practical offer. The chiefs of Makkah were simply hoping for the slightest indication from him that he was after some material gain. That would have given them all the justification they needed to resort to the most violent means in order to suppress his call. He, however, was clear about his priorities and objectives. He said to them: “I am not after your money, and I do not seek a position or a crown. God has made me His Messenger and revealed to me a book and instructed me to give you a message of good tidings and a warning. I have conveyed God’s message to you as best as I could and I have given you good counsel. If you accept it from me, it will be good for you in this life and in the life to come. If you turn it down, I will continue to preach it until God settles the issue between us.”
Perhaps that should have been the end of the matter, since it was apparent that no change of attitude was possible. But the Quraysh elders proceeded to confront Muhammad with impossible demands, making their realization a proof that his message was true: “You know that our country is so hard to live in: Water is scarce and we are very poor. Pray your Lord Who sent you to us, then, and ask him to move away these mountains surrounding us and make our land an open plain with rivers flowing through it like those in Syria and Iraq. Ask Him also to raise for us a few of our forefathers who should include Qusayy ibn Kilab, who was a man of his word, so that we may ask them about what you say and whether it is true or false. If you do that and if they testify for you, we will recognize your high position with God and will believe that you are His messenger.”
The line of argument, then, had nothing to do with the subject matter of the conflict between the Quraysh and the Prophet. They could not address the main issue. They asked to see Qusayy because he had the reputation of being ‘a man of his word’. None of them ever met Qusayy, because he died long before their time. Little did they reflect that they had intimately known Muhammad himself for close on 50 years and they knew from their personal experience that he never told a lie. If they could not believe the man whom they knew to tell the truth, would they have believed Qusayy? What if Qusayy were to tell them what they did not want to hear: That Muhammad was telling the truth? Would they not have turned against him in the same way as they turned against Muhammad when he told them that he was God’s Messenger?
The Prophet paid no attention to their demands, but simply said to them: “This is not what I was sent to you for. I have conveyed to you the message with which God has entrusted me. If you accept it, you benefit yourselves here and in the life to come. If you deny it, I will await God’s judgment between us.”
The Quraysh chiefs continued to demand acts of a miraculous nature: “Since you decline that, why do you not get something for yourself? Ask your Lord to send you an angel to endorse what you say and argue your case with us. Ask Him further to give you a palace and a garden and a great amount of gold and silver so that you do not need to work for your living. We will then realize that you are favored by God, and we would know that your claim to be His Messenger is true.”
How naïve and ignorant. They knew Muhammad to be a man of great integrity. Before he preached his message, they always expressed their admiration for his good manners and his moral values, but all these qualities were not equal in their view to material wealth. This, however, did not deter the Prophet from making the proper answer: “I would not ask Him anything of the sort. I am simply sent to deliver good tidings and a warning. If you accept, you benefit yourselves. If you refuse, I will await God’s judgment.”
All these demands were made by way of trying to set a price in return for conversion to Islam, as some people often do. But wise people tend to examine the issue under discussion and make an objective judgment. This was far from the approach of the Quraysh chiefs in that meeting with the Prophet. They continued their challenge, asking the Prophet now to bring about their doom: “Make the sky break up then, and let it fall over us as you claim your Lord is capable of doing. We will not believe in you unless you do this.” How stupid and misguided! Yet people do this all the time, praying for doom instead of praying for guidance to the truth.
At this point, the Prophet’s answer was very simple and to the point: “That is up to God. If He decides to do that, He will.” By now, the mood of the Quraysh was that of someone who has deliberately turned a deaf ear to any answer that might be given. They interpreted Muhammad’s attitude to their demands as an indication of weakness and powerlessness. Therefore, they said to him: “Muhammad! Was not your Lord aware that we would be meeting you and putting to you these requests and demands? Why has He not told you what answer you should give us, or what He will do to us since we have rejected your message?”
Apparently, the meeting degenerated at this point into complete chaos, with each one of those chiefs saying whatever occurred to him without discipline and with a total lack of coherence. Everyone shouted as loud as he could in order to emphasize his opposition to the Prophet. All sorts of voices were heard, with total lack of coherence and more chaos. The Prophet stood up and walked away, sad and overwhelmed with grief that his people deliberately rejected what they knew to be the truth.
As the Prophet walked away, a cousin of his (the son of his paternal aunt), Abdullah ibn Abi Umayyah walked by his side, not to console him but to express thoughts that proved that he was an unrivalled lunatic and an uncompromising fool. He said to the Prophet: “Muhammad, your people made you practical proposals, but you refused them. They asked you to bring them some favors by which they would recognize your high position with God as you claim, but you refused. You even refused to take for yourself things that would prove that you enjoy a position of favor with God. By God, I shall never believe in you until you have stretched a ladder to the sky and climbed up that ladder in front of my eyes until you have reached the sky. You then come back here with four angels testifying to the truthfulness of what you say. By God, even if you do all this, I do not think that I will believe in you.”
Absurdity knows no limits. A man specifies his own conditions but then says that he would not budge even if his conditions were met. But we see how even in the face of such determined rejection, the Prophet continued to stress the truth of Islam and to call on those people to believe in it.