62 III/he FooIJltps r1 the PrrJpbtlshare the population's faith, they were received, protected, aod tolerated.
They had d ecided to say the truth: a t the most haza rdous moment of the
encounter with th e Negus, thcy had neither tried to evade lhe question
nor lied about what the Prophet Muhammad said o f Jesus, son o f Mary.
They indeed risked being sent back aod e xtradited, but they were no t in
the same situation as Ammar, who under torture had verbally denied hi s
faith to save his life. I n this case, then, in spite of the dangers im-olved,
there was no way o ut: th e Muslims kept to their beliefs, which thcy
expressed with sincerity and honesty. They had no other ch oice but to say
the truth, and so they did.
Besides, it shouJd be noted that J afar had at first set forth the similari-
ties between the twO Revelatio ns. The [lIst verses he had recited clearly
showed that the so u rce of the message was the same and that Muslims,
when accepting me new Revelation, worshipcd me sa me God as Christians
and recognized their prophet. J r was th e Meccan emissaries who had tried
to point o u t the differe nces i n order to m ake uoublc, but Jafar was juSt as
quick to staunchly explain the message o f his faith with its dis tinctions
and differences. The mere presence of the Muslims in Abyssinia basical-
ly sent the Christians another message: that the l.·luslims had recognized
in the Negus a man o f princip le an d justice, and this was why they had
decided to seek refuge in his land. The Negus was not a J'vluslim, but he
had perfectly heard the twofold meaning, explicit and implicit, of the
message b ro ught by the Muslims: dleir G o d is the same, whatever the dif-
ferences between th eir texts and our beliefs; their values, o f respect and
justice, are the same whatever the disc re pancies berween the religions'
textS. T he king heard and welcomed th ose believers of another faith.
Subsequently, th e Negus converted to Islam and remained in continu-
o us contact with the Prophet Nluhammad. He represented the latter at a
wedding ceremony, and the Prophet performed the prayer for the absent
deceased (sa/at a/-gbttib) when he learned o f the Negus's death. The major-
ity o f the !-Iuslims exiled in Abyssinia stayed there for about fifteen years,
until dIe Khayba.r expedition (m 630), at which time they joined the
Prophet in Yathrib, which had by then become J\·ledina. Olhers had gone
back to t-.lecca earlier upon n:cciving positive news from there (though
some of lhese returned reI again to Abyssinia), bur none ever m et with
any uOllble in the Negus's kingdom.