Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

“ AND MUHAMMAD IS HIS MESSENGER” t 65
Boycott
It is hard to imagine that the success of Muhammad’s movement—
if that is not too generous a term—troubled the Quraysh. The new
prophet won a few followers, but they were younger men by and
large—his cousin Ali was little more than a child at the time—and
they were neither wealthy nor powerful. Yet they were not so few
as to be invisible, and everything we know about Mecca of that era
speaks of shifting alliances constantly being made and remade. In
coalition politics a little counts for a lot, and so this new faction of
“Muslims,” whose allegiance was not tribal and whose self-interest
could not be appealed to, may have counted for far more than
its numbers suggest.
The rulers among the Quraysh were alarmed in any event. Ill
treatment of the Muslims yielded to more concerted and more serious
action against the Prophet. No one had attacked Muhammad
directly since he was under the protection of Abu Talib, the
clan head of the Hashim and the uncle who had raised him (and
was also the father of the much younger Ali). Since Abu Talib
would not withdraw his protection of his nephew, the two leading
clans of the Quraysh declared a public boycott against their old
commercial rivals of the Hashim, Muhammad’s own kin. The
Prophet may have anticipated more serious troubles ahead. He arranged
for some of his followers to migrate to the kingdom of
Abyssinia across the Red Sea. The choice is interesting. Christian
Abyssinia had long had commercial relations with Mecca, and
Muhammad must surely have thought that his Muslims would receive
a sympathetic hearing there, as apparently they did. Many
stayed on in Africa but others rejoined Muhammad after he had
resettled in Medina.
We cannot say how the boycott, which did not seem terribly
effective, would have played out since events intervened, notably
the death in 619 of Muhammad’s wife Khadija, who was, by all
accounts, one of his chief psychological supports. The same year
also marked the death of Abu Talib, the uncle whose steadfast
resolve in the face of the boycott was essential to his nephew’s
safety. Muhammad’s days in Mecca were obviously numbered, as