The Prophet ﷺ at Ta'if: The Hardest Day and the Mercy He Chose
A Seerah reflection on rejection, the prayer at Ta'if, 'Addas, and the Angel of the Mountains.
There is a road that climbs from Makkah into the mountains toward At-Ta'if. In Shawwal of the tenth year of Prophethood, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ walked that road with one companion, carrying nothing but a message and a hope.
In Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar), Shaykh Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri places this journey in the Year of Grief. Abu Talib, his protector, had died. Khadijah, his beloved wife and the first believer, had returned to her Lord. So he looked beyond Makkah for people who might listen. What happened in At-Ta'if is one of the most painful scenes in the Seerah, and one of the most beautiful.
If you are carrying something heavy right now, this story is for you.
Ten Days of Closed Doors
The Sealed Nectar dates the journey to late May or early June 619 CE. The Prophet ﷺ walked the sixty or so kilometres with his freed slave Zaid bin Harithah.
He invited three brothers, 'Abd Yalail, Mas'ud and Habeeb, chieftains of Thaqif, to worship Allah alone. One mocked him with a remark about tearing the cloth of the Ka'bah and asked whether Allah had really sent him. The second asked whether Allah could not find someone else to send. The third swore by Allah he would never have anything to do with him: if he were truly a Messenger, he was too great to be answered, and if he were lying, he was not worth answering.
The Prophet ﷺ did not argue. He stood up and left.
But he did not go home. For ten days he stayed, speaking to one person after another, and every door stayed shut.
Most of us lose heart after one cold reply. He had just lost the two people who had held him up for a decade, and still he kept knocking.
Stones in the Alleyways
Then, The Sealed Nectar says, the people of At-Ta'if jeered him through the alleyways and pelted him with stones. Blood flowed down both his legs. Zaid tried to shield him and was wounded in the head. The crowd chased them two or three miles, to the foot of the hills.
This is the man Allah describes with the words: "And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds" (Qur'an 21:107). Mercy to the worlds, walking a dusty road with blood on his legs.
When the people you wanted to help hurt you, it can feel like proof that you got everything wrong. It is not. Sometimes it is the same road the best of creation walked before you.
A Prayer Against the Vineyard Wall
Exhausted, he rested against a vineyard wall. The Seerah books record a supplication from this moment, and The Sealed Nectar's translation begins:
> "O Allah! To You alone I make complaint of my helplessness, the paucity of my resources and my insignificance before mankind. You are the most Merciful of the mercifuls. You are the Lord of the helpless and the weak, O Lord of mine!"
And it turns on this line:
> "But if Your wrath does not fall on me, there is nothing for me to worry about."
A word on the source. This prayer is not in Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim. It comes through the Seerah literature, going back to Ibn Ishaq, and hadith scholars, Shaykh al-Albani among them, graded its chain weak. So we read it as a Seerah report, not as an established hadith like the one that comes later.
Its spirit, though, echoes the Qur'an. Yunus (AS) "called out within the darknesses, 'There is no deity except You; exalted are You. Indeed, I have been of the wrongdoers'" (Qur'an 21:87). Bringing your weakness to Allah is not a lack of faith. It is worship.
Grapes and a Man from Nineveh
Then something gentle happened. In The Sealed Nectar's account, the orchard's owners, the two sons of Rabi'ah, were moved by kinship and pity and sent their Christian servant, 'Addas, with a tray of grapes.
The Prophet ﷺ took the fruit and said, "In the Name of Allah." 'Addas remarked that people there did not usually speak that way, and said he was a Christian from Nineveh.
"You belong to the city of the righteous Jonah, son of Matta," the Prophet ﷺ said. When 'Addas asked what he knew of him, he answered: "He is my brother. He was a Prophet and so am I." The book says 'Addas kissed his hands, and when his masters scolded him, he told them, "None on the earth is better than he is."
On the worst day in At-Ta'if, a man from the city of Yunus walks up with grapes, and the brotherhood of the Prophets becomes the first door that opens.
Allah did not send an army that afternoon. He sent a servant with fruit. Never look down on the small mercy that arrives in the middle of a large pain. It may be Allah telling you that He has seen you.
A Cloud, an Angel, and a Choice
The next part is told by the Prophet ﷺ himself, in an authentic hadith.
'Aishah asked him whether he had ever faced a day harder than Uhud. He said the worst he suffered from his people was "on the day of 'Aqaba when I presented myself to Ibn 'Abd-Yalail bin 'Abd-Kulal and he did not respond to my demand." He walked away overwhelmed with sorrow and did not come to himself until Qarn ath-Tha'alib. He looked up and saw a cloud shading him, with Jibril in it, who called out: "Allah has heard your people's saying to you, and what they have replied back to you." Allah had sent the Angel of the Mountains to do whatever he wished.
The angel offered to let the two mountains of Makkah, Al-Akhshabain, fall on them. The Prophet ﷺ replied: "No but I hope that Allah will let them beget children who will worship Allah Alone, and will worship None besides Him." (Sahih al-Bukhari 3231; see also Sahih Muslim 1795)
The hadith names the day of 'Aqabah, not At-Ta'if. The Sealed Nectar, like many Seerah writers and commentators, links that day to the return from At-Ta'if and identifies Qarn ath-Tha'alib with Qarn Al-Manazil on the road to Makkah.
He had the power to answer every stone, and he chose to hope for their children.
The Sealed Nectar calls it a concise answer "fully indicative of the Prophet's matchless character."
Listeners He Could Not See
The Sealed Nectar continues at Wadi Nakhlah, where he stayed a few days, and places here the night a company of jinn listened to his recitation:
> "And [mention, O Muhammad], when We directed to you a few of the jinn, listening to the Qur'an. And when they attended it, they said, 'Listen attentively.' And when it was concluded, they went back to their people as warners." (Qur'an 46:29)
Surah Al-Jinn records their words: "Indeed, we have heard an amazing Qur'an [i.e., recitation]. It guides to the right course, and we have believed in it" (Qur'an 72:1-2).
The verses do not name a place. Setting them on the road home from At-Ta'if is The Sealed Nectar's reading, and the book notes the jinn came again later.
At-Ta'if refused to listen. Others were listening. Sometimes your effort lands where you cannot see it.
Walking Back Into Makkah
In The Sealed Nectar, Zaid asks how they can return to a Makkah that drove him out. The Prophet ﷺ replies that Allah will surely bring relief and support His religion and His Prophet.
He asked Al-Akhnas bin Shuraiq for protection and was refused. He asked Suhail bin 'Amr and was refused again. Then Al-Mut'im bin 'Adi agreed. He armed his people, and the Prophet ﷺ entered the Sacred Mosque, prayed two rak'ahs, and went home under their guard. He never forgot that favour.
And At-Ta'if itself? The book tells us that in Ramadan of 9 AH a Thaqif delegation came to Madinah, its envoy named 'Abd Yalail bin 'Amr, the same name as one of the three brothers. They first bargained to keep wine, usury and their idol Al-Lat, and to be excused from prayer. The Prophet ﷺ refused every request. In the end they accepted Islam.
What At-Ta'if Teaches a Tired Heart
Your pain is not a sign that Allah has left you. On his hardest day, Jibril came with the words, "Allah has heard your people's saying to you." He hears yours too.
Bring your weakness to Allah honestly. Yunus called out from the darkness and admitted his fault. Turning to Allah broken is still turning to Allah.
Choose mercy when you could choose revenge. He was offered the mountains and asked for his enemies' children to be guided instead.
Allah says, "For indeed, with hardship [will be] ease. Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease" (Qur'an 94:5-6). The road out of At-Ta'if was covered in stones. It still led home, and beyond home, to everything Allah had promised.
May Allah send peace and blessings upon our beloved Prophet ﷺ, who bled for our guidance and prayed for those who hurt him, and may He make us people who turn to Him first when the world turns away.
Sources & Further Reading
Qur'an (Sahih International translation, via Quran.com)
Hadith (Sunnah.com)
- Sahih al-Bukhari 3231: 'Aishah's question, the day of 'Aqabah, and the Angel of the Mountains
- Sahih Muslim 1795: the same narration
Seerah
- Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri, Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar), chapters "Calling unto Islam beyond Makkah" and "Thaqif Delegation". The journey, the brothers' replies, the stoning, the vineyard prayer, 'Addas, the link between the day of 'Aqabah and At-Ta'if, Wadi Nakhlah, Al-Mut'im's protection and the Thaqif delegation are from this book.
- On the grading of the Ta'if supplication: IslamQA, answer 148943 (Arabic)
More on Taha Utopia
- The Year of Sorrow: Grief and Steadfast Love
- [Patience Under Siege: The Boycott in Shi`b Abi Talib](https://tahautopia.com/blog/sealed-nectar-boycott-shib-abi-talib-patience-under-siege/)
- How to Read Hadith as a Beginner