22 No god but God
trips throughout the region and would have encountered Christian,
Zoroastrian, and Jewish tribes, all of whom were deeply involved in
Arab society; and finally, that he must have been familiar with the reli-
gion and ideology of Hanifism, which pervaded Mecca and which very
likely set the stage for Muhammad’s own movement. Indeed, as if
to emphasize the connection between Hanifism and Islam, the early
Muslim biographers transformed Zayd into a John the Baptist char-
acter, attributing to him the expectation of “a prophet from the
descendants of Ismail, in particular from the descendants of Abd
al-Muttalib.”
“I do not think that I shall live to see him,” Zayd reportedly said,
“but I believe in him, proclaim the truth of his message, and testify
that he is a prophet.”
Perhaps Zayd was wrong. Perhaps he did meet this prophet,
though he could not have known that the young orphan boy he had
instructed against sacrificing to the idols would, in a few short years,
stand where Zayd once stood, in the shadow of the Ka‘ba, and raise his
voice over the din of the spinning pilgrims to ask, “Have you consid-
ered Allat, al-Uzza, and Manat?... These are only names that you
and your fathers invented... I prefer the religion of Abraham the
Hanif, who was not one of the idolaters” (53:19, 23; 2:135).