God began to talk to Muhammad(sa) in "another tongue". The youth of the country began to wonder. Those in search of truth became excited. Out of scorn and derision began to grow approval and admiration. Slaves, young men, and hapless women began to collect around the Prophet(sa). In his Message and in his teaching there was hope for the degraded, the depressed and the young. Women thought the time for the restoration of their rights was near. Slaves thought the day of their liberation had come and young men thought the avenues of progress were going to be thrown open to them. When derision began to change into approval and indifference into attachment, the chiefs of Mecca and the officials began to take fright. They assembled and took counsel. They decided that derision was no method to deal with this menace. A more serious remedy had to be applied. The new influence had to be put down by force. It was decided that persecution and some form of boycott must be instituted. Practical steps were soon taken, and Mecca was pitched against Islam in a serious conflict. The Prophet(sa) and his small following were no longer considered mad, but a growing influence which, if allowed to grow unimpeded, would prove a danger to the faith, prestige, customs and traditions of Mecca. Islam threatened to pull down and rebuild the old structure of Meccan society, to create a new heaven and a new earth, the coming of which must mean the disappearance of the old heaven of Arabia and its old heart. Meccans could no longer laugh at Islam. It was a question now of life and death for them. Islam was a challenge and Mecca accepted the challenge, as enemies of Prophets had always accepted the challenge of their Prophets. They decided not to meet argument by argument but to draw the sword and put down the dangerous teaching by force; not to match the good example of the Prophet(sa) and his followers by their own, nor to reply to kind words in kind, but to maltreat the innocent and to abuse those who spoke kindly. Once again in the world a conflict started between belief and disbelief; the forces of Satan declared war on the angels. The Faithful, still a handful, had no power to resist the onslaughts and violence of the disbelievers. A most cruel campaign began. Women were butchered shamelessly. Men were slaughtered. The slaves who had declared their faith in the Prophet(sa) were dragged over burning sands and stones. Their skins became hardened like those of animals. A long time after, when Islam had become established far and near, one of these early converts named Khabbab bin Al-Arat(ra) had his body exposed. His friends saw his skin hardened like an animal's and asked him why it was so. Khabbab(ra) laughed and said it was nothing; only a memory of those early days when slaves converted to Islam were dragged through the streets of Mecca over hard and hot sands and stones (Musnad, Vol. 5, p. 110).
The slaves who believed came from all communities. Bilal(ra) was a negro, Suhaib(ra) a Greek. They belonged to different faiths. Jabr(ra) and Suhaib(ra) were Christians, Bilal(ra) and ‘Ammar(ra), idol-worshippers. Bilal(ra) was made to lie on hot sand, loaded with stones, and boys were made to dance on his chest, and his master, Umayya bin Khalf, tortured him thus and then asked him to renounce Allah and the Prophet(sa) and sing the praises of the Meccan gods, Lat and ‘Uzza. Bilal(ra) only said, Ahad, Ahad ... (God is One).
Exasperated, Umayya handed Bilal(ra) over to street boys, asking them to put a cord round his neck and drag him through the town over sharp stones. Bilal's(ra) body bled, but he went on muttering, Ahad, Ahad… Later, when Muslims settled in Medina and were able to live and worship in comparative peace, the Holy Prophet(sa) appointed Bilal(ra) a Mu’adhdhin, the official who calls the worshippers to prayers. Being an African, Bilal(ra) missed the (h), in the Arabic Ashhadu (I bear witness). Medinite believers laughed at his defective pronunciation, but the Prophet(sa) rebuked them and told them how dear Bilal(ra) was to God for the stout faith he showed under Meccan tortures. Abu Bakr(ra) paid ransom for Bilal(ra) and many other slaves and secured their release. Among them was Suhaib(ra), a prosperous merchant, whom the Quraish continued to belabour even after his release. When the Holy Prophet(sa) left Mecca to settle down in Medina, Suhaib(ra) wanted to go with him. But the Meccans stopped him. He could not take away from Mecca, they said, the wealth he had earned in Mecca. Suhaib(ra) offered to surrender all his property and earnings and asked whether they would then let him go. The Meccans accepted the arrangement. Suhaib(ra) reached Medina empty-handed and saw the Prophet(sa), who heard him and congratulated him, saying, "This was the best bargain of your life."
Most of these slave-converts remained steadfast in outer as well as inner professions of faith. But some were weak. Once the Holy Prophet(sa) found ‘Ammar(ra) groaning with pain and drying his tears. Approached by the Prophet(sa), ‘Ammar(ra) said he had been beaten and compelled to recant. The Prophet(sa) asked him, "But did you believe at heart?" ‘Ammar(ra) declared that he did, and the Prophet(sa) said that God would forgive his weakness.
‘Ammar's(ra) father, Yasir(ra), and his mother, Samiyya(ra), also were tormented by disbelievers. On one such occasion the Prophet(sa) happened to pass by. Filled with emotion, he said, "Family of Yasir(ra), bear up patiently, for God has prepared for you a Paradise." The prophetic words were soon fulfilled. Yasir(ra) succumbed to the tortures, and a little later Abu Jahl murdered his aged wife, Samiyya(ra), with a spear.
Zinbira(ra), a woman slave, lost her eyes under the cruel treatment of disbelievers.
Abu Fukaih(ra), Safwan bin Umayya's slave, was laid on hot sand while over his chest were placed heavy and hot stones, under pain of which his tongue dropped out.
Other slaves were mishandled in similar ways.
These cruelties were beyond endurance. But early believers bore them because their hearts were made stout by assurances received daily from God. The Qur’an descended on the Prophet(sa), but the reassuring voice of God descended on all believers. Were not this so, the Faithful could not have withstood the cruelties to which they were subjected. Abandoned by fellow-men, friends and relations, they had none but God with them, and they cared not whether they had anyone else. Because of Him, the cruelties seemed nothing, abuse sounded like prayers and stones seemed like velvet.
The free citizens who believed were not less cruelly treated. Their elders and chiefs tormented them in different ways. ‘Uthman(ra) was a man of forty, and prosperous. Yet when the Quraish resolved upon general persecution of Muslims, his uncle, Hakam, tied him up and beat him. Zubair bin al-‘Awwam(ra), a brave young lad who later became a great Muslim general, was wrapped up in a mat by his uncle, smoked from underneath and tortured by suffocation. But he would not recant. He had found Truth and would not give it up.
Abu Dharr(ra), of the tribe of Ghaffar, heard of the Prophet(sa) and went to Mecca to investigate. The Meccans dissuaded him, saying that they knew Muhammad(sa) well and that his Movement was only a selfish design. Abu Dharr(ra) was not impressed; so he went to the Prophet(sa), heard the Message of Islam straight from him and was converted. Abu Dharr(ra) asked if he could keep his faith secret from his tribe. The Prophet(sa) said he could do so for a few days. But as he passed through the streets of Mecca he heard a party of Meccan chiefs abuse the Holy Prophet(sa) and make vile attacks. No longer could he keep his faith secret, and he declared at once: "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and that there is no one like Allah; and Muhammad(sa) is His Servant and Prophet(sa)." This cry raised in an assembly of disbelievers seemed to them an effrontery. They rose in wrath and belaboured him until he fell down senseless. The Prophet's(sa) uncle ‘Abbas(ra), not a convert yet, passed by and began to remonstrate on behalf of the victim. "Your food caravans pass through Abu Dharr's(ra) tribe," he said, "and angered at your treatment, his people can starve you to death." The following day Abu Dharr(ra) stayed at home. But the day after he went again to the same assembly and found them abusing the Holy Prophet(sa) as before. He went to the Ka‘ba and found people doing the same. He could not restrain himself, stood up and made a loud declaration of his faith. Again he was severely handled. The same thing happened a third time, and Abu Dharr(ra) went back to his tribe.
The Holy Prophet(sa) himself was no exception to the cruel treatment meted out to the Faithful. On one occasion he was in prayer. A party of disbelievers put a mantle round his neck and dragged him; his eyes seemed protruded. Abu Bakr(ra) happened to come and rescued him, saying, "You seek to kill him, because he says, God is his Master?" On another occasion he lay prostrate in prayer and they laid the entrails of a camel on his back. He could not rise until the weight was removed. On yet another occasion he was passing through a street and a group of street boys followed him. They went on slapping his neck and telling the people that he called himself a Prophet(sa). Such was the hatred and enmity against him, and such was his helplessness.
The Prophet's(sa) house was stoned from surrounding houses. Garbage and the remains of slaughtered animals were thrown into his kitchen. On many occasions dust was thrown on him while he was praying so that he had to retire to a safe spot for his public prayers.
These cruelties, perpetrated against a weak and innocent group and their honest, well- meaning but helpless Leader(sa), were not wasted, however. Decent men saw all this and became drawn to Islam. The Prophet(sa) was once resting on Safa, a hill near the Ka‘ba. The Meccan chief Abu Jahl, the Prophet's(sa) arch-enemy, passed by and began to pour vile abuse on him. The Prophet(sa) said nothing and went home. A woman-slave of his household was a witness to this distressing scene. Hamza(ra), the Prophet's(sa) uncle, a brave man feared by all his townsmen, returned home from a hunt in the jungle and entered the house proudly, his bow hung on his shoulder. The woman-slave had not forgotten the morning scene. She was disgusted to see Hamza(ra) walk home thus. She taunted him, saying that he thought himself brave and went about armed but knew not what Abu Jahl had done to his innocent nephew in the morning. Hamza(ra) heard an account of the morning incident. Though not a believer, he possessed nobility of character. He may have been impressed by the Prophet's(sa) Message, but not to the extent of joining openly. When he heard of this wanton attack by Abu Jahl, he could not hold back. His hesitancy about the new Message was gone. He began to feel that so far he had been too casual about it. He made straight for the Ka‘ba, where the chiefs of Mecca were wont to meet and confer. He took his bow and struck Abu Jahl hard. "Count me from today a follower of Muhammad(sa)," he said. "You abused him this morning because he would say nothing. If you are brave, come out and fight me." Abu Jahl was dumbfounded. His friends rose to help but, afraid of Hamza(ra) and his tribe, Abu Jahl stopped them, thinking an open fight would cost too dearly. He was really to blame, he said, about the morning incident (Hisham and Tabari).