THE CAREBR OF ABU SUFYAN BBFORE AND AFTBR HIS CONVERSION TO ISLAM BY SULBMAN BSSOP DANGAR SUBMITTBD IN PART FULFILMENT OF THB REQUlREKBNTS FOR THB DBGREB OF D. PHIL. DBPARTKBNT OF ISLAMIC STUDIBS IN THB , . FACULTY OF ARTS AT THB UNIVERSITY OF DURBAN-WESTVILLE PROMOTBR: PROFBSSOR S S NADVI DATB: 18 DBCBKBBR 1987 CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i TRANSLITERATION TABLE ii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE STUDY OF THE SOURCES 6 I\, 1\ GENEALOGY OF ABU SUFYAN 20 CHAPTER TWO A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF ABUA SUFYA" N 21 Date of Birth 22 Parents 23 Wives and Offspring 26 Ziyad 30 Mu'awiyyah 34 Urnm Habibah 37 Hind 42 Wealth and Status 48 Death 54 CHAPTER THREE THE PROPHET'S MISSION AND THE NEGATIVE RESPONSE OF THE QURAYSH 56 CHAPTER FOUR A A ABU SUFYAN'S OPPOSITION TO THE PROPHET OF ISLAM a). From the Advent of Prophethood to Badr 68 Journey with Umayyah ibn Abi $alt to Syria 68 Journey with aI-Abbas to Yemen 71 AbU Sufyan, AbU Jahl and the Prophet 74 Fear of Loss of Status 74 Tribal Rivalry 75 Beginning of Active Opposition 79 Events leading to the Battle of Badr 83 Impact of Quraysh Defeat on AbU Sufyan 87 b). From Badr to Khandaq 90 Expedition of Sawiq 92 Expedition of Zayd ibn Harithah 93 Battle of Uhud 94 Execution of Khubayb and Zayd 100 Battle of Ahzab 103 CHAPTER FIVE A A REASONS FOR ABU SUFYAN'S ACCEPTANCE OF ISLAM The Truce of al-~udaybiyyah 107 AbU Sufyan in the Court of Heraclius 110 Prophet's marriage to Umm Habibah 112 Exchange of Gifts 113 Violation of the Truce 115 AbU Sufyan's attempt to renew the Truce 117 AbU Sufyan's acceptance of Islam 119 Conquest of Makkah 122 CHAPTER SIX 1\ J\ ABU SUFYAN'S CAREER AFTER HIS CONVERSION TO ISLAM a). Career during the lifetime of the Prophet 129 Battle of ~unayn 130 Siege of 'fa'if 133 Destruction of al-Lat 137 Appointment as Witness 139 Appointment as Collector of "~adaqat" 140 Appointment as Governor 141 b). Career during the rule of the first three Caliphs of Islam 142 i) During the Caliphate of Abu Bakr 142 ii) During the Caliphate of 'Umar 146 Battle of Yarmuk 148 iii) During the Caliphate of 'Uthman 155 CONCLUSION 157 MAPS: The Battlefield of Badr 88 The Battlefield of Uhud 98 The Battlefield of Khandaq 105 APPENDIX A 161 BIBLIOGRAPHY 168 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to my parents for their encouragement and to my wife for her patience and support during the course of writing this thesis. I wish to express my appreciation to my colleague, Ibrahim Mahida, senior technical assistant in the Department of Islamic Studies, for having kindly consented to type the prelimi nary draft of my thesis; and Andisha Maharaj for typing the final draft. Also I would like to thank Abdul Majid who is presently Mu~ammad, teaching at the Lenasia High School, for having taken the trouble to send me some of the source materials I required for my thesis from Saudi Arabi a while he was studying there. I must acknowledge my gratitude to Dr ~asan al-Nasi~, Head of the Language Division at the Arabic Language Institute, King Saud University in Riyad for correcting my translations of the Arabic poems which appear in the Appendix. I am thankful to the Trustees of "al-Waqf al-'Ilmi" of Johannes burg for their financial assistance with the typing of the final draft, photocopying and binding of the thesis. Finally, I am indebted to my promoter, Professor Syed Salman Nadvi of the Department of Islamic Studies, University of Durban Westville, for his incisive criticism, sound advice and valuable suggestions. i TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM ARABIC to ENGLISH ... m r t ..b d .;, "\ ~} n 0 z j; dh J "" • h • -( e. r b .J ~ W J gh e. z J• t <.:,. Y t.J f u s V'" th ~ .. g ~ sh V'" j c:: k ~ S fJJ h c: • • . 1 J d ,.p kh c: • VOWELS Long: Doubled: :'. : . Short: Diphth~ngs - - • ,. 'o_r .tt, S -a ,.,. iyy f(ofrimn ail) J au.2.!: aw ~ r" a ., u ~ - ~ uww (final I..S ai.2.!: ay - ~. /'"'- U form ii) t.J 1. - "'"' i ". i i INTRODUCTION When the Prophet of Islam began his mission in Makkah (Mecca) he was opposed by the leaders of the Quraysh. The more Islam gained ground the more the chiefs of the various Quraysh tribes combined in increasing their hostility to the Prophet and his followers. Soon after the Prophet and his Companions migrated to Madinah in 1 A.H./622 C.E., the Quraysh hostility turned into an armed con flict as a result of which the Quraysh lost almost all their first rank leaders. The mantle of leadership thus fell on AbU Sufyan, an influential Qurayshite representative of the second generation. By virture of the fact that he was now the recog nised chief of the Quraysh, AbU Sufyan was duty-bound to con tinue, for the next six years, the campaign of armed hostility against the Prophet. AbU Sufyan's intense hatred of the Prophet and his vehement op position against Islam was also manifested by his wife Hind and several prominent members of his own tribe, the BanU Umayyah. This relationship between AbU Sufyan and the Prophet became deli cate and complicated when the former's daughter, Umm Habibah, ac cepted Islam and became the wife of the Prophet. However, AbU Sufyan's armed campaign succeeded neither in killing the Prophet nor in driving him and his Companions out of Madinah, nor in checking the forward march of Islam. Finally, when the Prophet with his Companions mad~ a triumphant entry into Makkah in the year 8 A.H./630 C.E., AbU Sufyan, having realised the 1 failure and futility of his mission, accepted Islam. Although his acceptance of Islam on the eve of the Makkan con quest less than three years before the death of the Prophet - did not give him much opportunity for a longer period of com panionship with the Prophet, he was, nevertheless, accorded a significant degree of importance and distinction by the Prophet and his Companions. However, despite the fact that he accepted Islam and fought in subsequent battles in the defence of Islam, Abu Sufyan's oppo nents cast doubts regarding his fidelity to Islam by accusing him of having accepted Islam only outwardly. These opponents maintained that Abu Sufyan's earlier dislike and inner hatred towards Islam did not cease to the end, and that his conversion to Islam was motivated more by pragmatic strategy than through sincerity. Reporters hostile to Abu Sufyan and to his tribe, Banu Umayyah deliberately circulated reports to discredit him. This has created in the early Islamic biographies and historical literature, a contradictory picture of Abu Sufyan. It is a well known fact that the stories of tribal wars, poetry and history of the pre-Islamic days (al-Ayyam al-Jahiliyyah) were based on oral transmission from generation to generation. The era of writing history, i.e. , recording events in writing, began with the advent of Islam and soon gave rise to the development of various fully fledged sciences such as history, biography jurisprudence, Qur'anic commentaries, ~adith literature, etc. Thus, the original sources, all of which are in Arabic contain 2 biographical reports and historical events as they actually hap pened or as narrated by the original reporters who were concerned at the time more with the recording of events than with their This means that although the present study is evaluation. primarily a descriptive one, the research will be conducted through content analysis of the vast body of original reports, relevant materials and original sources all of which are avail able at our library. The veracity of reports having any bearing on the present study will be determined by examining the biographical literature containing personal details of the original reporters. students of history often ignore the Qur'an and ~adith as sources for the early period of Islamic history though these sources provide rich information for this period. As they have a direct bearing on the life of the Prophet and his Companions, no study of this period can be complete without reference to the Qur'an and Hadith literature. Until now, no independant study of the character and career of AbO Sufyan, before and after his conversion to Islam, has been made anywhere. However, I came across two short biographies of AbO Sufyan in Urdu which have been published recently in Pakis tan. One is Hazrat AbO Sufyan awr Unki Ahliyyah (AbO Sufyan and his wife) by Mawlana Muhammad Nafi'i1. The other is Hashimi -Umawi Ta'allugat Awr Sirat-i-AbO Sufyan (Relations between the Umayyads and the Hashimites and the life of AbO Sufyan) 1. Published by the Mawlana Muhammad Dhakir Academy, Manzur Printing Press, Lahore in 1983 3 by Sayyid Altaf Husayn Gilani.1 Both the books are at introduc tory and elementary level and do not answer all the questions. Therefore, I have chosen to study Abu Sufyan, who as a chief of the Quraysh, led a series of battles against the Prophet, but who after accepting Islam, fought in its defence with equal zeal. The aims of the present study are to determine the status of Abu Sufyan among the Quraysh leaders, investigate the reasons for his vehement opposition to the Prophet and his, mission, examine the reasons for his subsequent conversion to Islam and to evaluate his career after his acceptance of Islam. Chapter One deals with a study of the sources relevant to the topic of the thesis; Chapter Two gives a short biography of Abu Sufyan; Chapter Three describes the Prophet's mission and the negative response to the Quraysh; Chapter Four discusses Abu Sufyan's opposition to the Prophet of Islam; Chapter Five analy ses the Reasons for Abu Sufyan's acceptance of Islam; and finally Chapter Six investigates Abu Sufyan's career after his acceptance of Islam. I hope I have succeeded in making a humble academic contribution which will draw the attention of Islamists, locally and abroad. 1. Published by Progress Books, Lahore, in 1987 4