78 I" lhe fif»lJqn of tk Prophtl
Say: "0 mose who ha,'C transgressed against themselves! Do not despair
of God's mercy: for God forgives ill sins; for He is the All· Forgiving, the
!-.losl Merciful. Turn to rOUf Lord and submit to I lim, before the chastise-
ment comes on you: after that you shall not be hdpcd:<WOn hearing those verses, H isham also came hack to Islam. Yet o ne who
did not return was Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh, who had gone to Abyssinia with
the first group of emigrants and who had then co nverted to Christianity
and abandoned his wife, Urn Habibah bint Abi Sufyan.21 Neither the
Prophet, from Mecca, nor any of th e Muslims who lived in Abyssinia
took aoy measure against him: he remained a Christian until he died with-
out ever being harassed o r ill-treated. This attitude of respect for every-
onc's freedom remained constant throughout the Prophe t's life, and the
authoritative accounts of his life contain no mention whatsocver of a dif-
ferent attitude. Later on, in Medina, he was to speak out harshly and take
firm measures against those who falsely converted to Islam for the sole
purpose of gathering information about the Muslims, then denied Islam
and went back to their tribes to bring them the informatio n they had man-
aged to o btain. These were in fact war traitors, who incurred the penalty
of death because their actions were liable to b ring about the destruction
of the J\'iuslim communit)".
Permission to EmigrateThe Prophet'S most recent protector, Mutim, had JUSt died. T he situation
was becoming particularly difficult, and the Q uraysh, who had noticed
that the J\'lustims were beginning to leave l\lecca, were in their turn
becoming more and more violent in their opposition. The clan chiefs
decided to unite, and at Abu Lahab and Abu Jahl's instigation, they
resolved that the Prophet must be done away with. Their plan was to
mandate an executioner from each clan in order to prevent the Banu
Hashim from taking revenge and asking for blood money. T hey agreed
that no time must be lost and that they must get rid of the Prophet as
soon as possible.
The Angel Gabriel had come to conflrm [0 the Prophet the meaning
of a dream he had had a few days before, when in a vision he had seen a