The Prophets Of Allah

The Year Of Sorrow

The end of the boycott occured in the 10th year of the dawah, around 2.5 years before the Hijrah. Barely when they returned Allah willed that 3 great calamaties happened. Because of these three calamties, this whole year is called the 'year of Sorrow'.

The first of these was that barely 5/6 weeks after the Banu Hashim came back, Abu Talib fell sick and he eventually passed away in the month of Shawwal in the 10th year of the dawah. In Bhukari its narrated "when Abu Talib reached the nearness of death, the prophet PBUH entered upon him while Abu JAhal was there. And he said "oh my uncle say the kalima so I can argue in front of Allah". And he was about to say it but there with him was Abu Jahal, and Abdullah ibn Umaya and they said "are you going to leave the religion of Abdul Muttalib?!"". And they kept on saying this every time they thought he might say the kalima. And eventually he died without ever uttering the kalima. And the prophet PBUH said "I will continue to ask Allah to forgive until Allah stops me". Note the prophet PBUH's role is to obey Allah and wait for his commandments. And generally, the prophets followed this. But in this case the prophet PBUH was so emotionally attached he said even though Allah hasn't told him, he decided he will ask for forgiveness until Allah stops him. And so Allah revealed in the Qur'an very elegantly and gently "it is not appropiate for the prophet or believers of Allah that they ask Him to forgive anyone, even their relatives, if they didn't die upon tawheed". And then the prophet PBUH stopped seeking forgiveness for him. And Allah also relvealed Surah Qassas. That "oh messenger, you will not guide those whom you love; rather Allah guides those whom he wishes". And in another hadith, we find it was Ali ibn Abu Talib who eventually came to inform him that Abu Talib had died. So this shows the prophet PBUH wasn't literally there when Abu Talib had died. In another narration Ali told the prophet PBUH "your misguided uncle has died" - this shows his anger and fustration with the fact his dad didn't revert. And so the prophet PBUH told Ali "go and burry him and then come back as soon as you do". And then the prophet PBUH made a long dua in front of Ali RA when the dust of the burial was still on him.

Note these 13 years of Mecca we only have a handful of incidents; nor do we know the excat chronology. Its because we don't have many narrations, and for the ones we do there is no context. The famous story where the people visited Abu Talib to beg the prophet PBUH to stop preaching and then Abu Talib then went to the prophet PBUH etc. One version is that this happened in the beginning in the dawah. Another is that it happened, Abu JAhal, Utbah ibn Umaya etc. they said "you are about to die; resolve this conflict NOW or else there will be civil war". And this also makes sense that they had one last try. And the condition they gave was "we won't kill him just make sure he minds his own business". Its reasonable to understand this story even on his deathbed. So according to this, then when the prophet PBUH came, that was when Abu Jahal and Umaya were all standing there and then Abu Talib says "my people have surrounded me, what do you want me to do? Give them this one condition - don't intefere with them. Don't ridicule their idols just mind your own business". The prophet PBUH said "I will give them this if they just give me one condition. And I promise all of the kingdoms of the arabs will be theres!". Abu Jahal stood up and said "We'll give you 10! What do you want?" Then the prophet PBUH said "say the one kalima and I'll give you the entire kingdoms". But of course Abu Jahal said "never!". In another version Abu Talib told the prophet PBUH he didn't say the kalima because he said: "now I am about to die, and I am scared of death, my people might say I was scared of my death". So his goodness aside, he had this pride and arrogance about his legacy. Indeed he had so much good, but this was one his own real crime that he didn't give this element of "my father is Abdul Mutallib and I have a legacy that I must keep" even up to death. Even though he knows his newphew is a real prophet. In one of his poetry he says "indeed my newphew's religion is the best of all religions and were it not for the fact people would critisize me that I've left my father's religion I would accept it". So he chose ego and pride over the truth, simply because his father was Abdul Muttalib. And again Abdul Mutallib was the legend of the arabs. And Abdul Muttalib was the main son and leader and carrier of the legend. And so for people to say "he left the religion of his father and embraced the relgion of his newphew" was too much for him to accept. Even though he witnessed so many miracles of the prophet PBUH. The main one was when he rested his entire prestigue on the fact that the treaty had been eatan up. And of course it was true.