 The mysteries of Islam fascinate us time and time again. This is no different from the life story of the Prophet. Who was Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wasallam? An illiterate dozen merchant who one day stumbled upon amazing Arabic rhetoric. Or was he the creation of Allah's greatest light, sent down to earth to pull man out of ignorance and bring them to the purest of truths? I Ali Burji am on a journey to discover the real story behind the Prophet, the real story behind our religion, the roots, the beginning, the cradle of civilization. We were discussing regarding the embargo, that difficult stressful time for Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, Bani Hashem and the followers, those little followers in the early days of Islam. So the Quraish, they're doing whatever they can to alienate Bani Hashem and the little followers of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam from the rest of the community and the trade world. So the Muslims are pretty much in a siege in their own homeland. So the Quraish as you've mentioned earlier are planning to kill the Prophet. They're organizing a conspiracy to get rid of the Holy Prophet, to assassinate him. And you've mentioned that the leaders, the chiefs of the tribes have all signed and agreed to the embargo and also to the eventually assassination of the Holy Prophet. If we can just discuss regarding the events of orchestrating all this. As I mentioned earlier that they wrote this document, which is referred to as the first accursed document and they placed it for safety in the Kaaba, inside the Kaaba. Of course, later on, this just between brackets, later on, we come across a second Saif al-Mal'una, the second accursed document. And that was done at the time when the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and the Muslims in the last year, they came for Hajj and five of the companions, they swore an oath and recorded that oath in a document that if, when the Prophet dies or he is killed, then we will ensure that we take over the succession, take over the reign and not allow his Ahlul Bayt to succeed him. So where was this written? This was written in the time of Hajj when the Prophet came for Hajj al-Wadaa in the year 10 and then this was done. This is referred to, we'll come into that insha'Allah in the future but this is referred to as a second accursed document. This was also placed in the Kaaba. So the first accursed document, this was signed by, as I said, 40 or some people, some generations say 80 chiefs of the clans of Quraish and it was placed inside the Kaaba for safekeeping and their aim was to be united to nothing but kill the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa ala and because he is spreading this new religion and more and more people are embracing this religion and this is unacceptable to Quraish as far as they were concerned. How were they planning to assassinate? They wanted to kill the Prophet overtly or covertly in any way possible, they wanted to kill the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa ala and this was their aim. In fact, when and because Bani Hashem were protecting him unfortunately Bani Hashem were main body which was protecting the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa ala and although there were other Muslims in Makkah but they weren't the target if you like the target was the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa ala and whoever was protecting him which was Bani Hashem and Bani Hashem says their narration says there were some who were Mu'mineen who believed in the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa ala and they were obviously obliged to protect him and they were still not Mu'min they didn't believe in the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa ala but because they were part of Bani Hashem they wanted to, as part of their duty being he is one of them they wanted to protect him as well so Bani Hashem became the target they were all surrounded in Sha'ab in the land of Abu Talib the valley of Abu Talib alaihi sallam and then Abu Talib decided because they were becoming very aggressive basically he kept even night vigil for the protection of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa ala and he had his sons and other members of Bani Hashem guarding the perimeter of various entry points to the Sha'ab to the plot of land even areas where there were like mountainous areas surrounding the plot of land he had people there, his sons and other members of Bani Hashem so they actually throughout the three years they were keeping night vigil to make sure that there is no infiltration, no assassination attempt and not only that when the Prophet used to sleep at one place at night he used to wake him up and after like two hours he would move him somewhere else and he would get his son to sleep in one case he asked his son Ali he said you come and sleep in place of your cousin and your Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and he could go somewhere else and Imam Ali said to him okay I'll sleep here but I will be a target and I will be killed and Abu Talib responded to him that in a beautiful piece of poetry that everyone eventually dies in this world the essence of that poetry that everyone eventually dies in this world but it's good that one dies for someone as beloved as the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi he is the messenger of God and we have to protect him and it's the greatest honor that we give our life for him and if you don't do that you eventually will die but what better than dying for someone like the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and Imam Ali alaihi sallam responded that I'm not fearful of dying I just wanted to say that I'm prepared to die how obedient I am to you Imam Ali was saying to Abu Talib alaihi sallam and he of course stayed there so this is one instance but this was happening all along during these three years because they were very determined that they should not allow the Prophet to continue like this because he's gaining more grounds, more people not only in Makkah but overseas as well and happily this is happening so they were very determined to do that and Abu Talib alaihi sallam despite all the hardship you can imagine that lack of food there are reports where the people of Quraish they used to sit during the day and speak to one another by the Kaaba for example saying that did you hear last night we could hear the children of Bani Hashem crying and that doesn't bother them one bit although there are some reports that some objected they said there's not, right, there's not but the overwhelming majority were not bothered they said we're not going to give up on that we have to put the pressure so that Abu Talib gives us or Bani Hashem give us Muhammad so that we kill him so they were determined in the election how ironic, sorry to interrupt you but how ironic that Quraish how history repeats itself even now we see in the Hijaz how the Shia are being oppressed and the Haq is trying to hide the truth and oppress the followers of Ahlul Bayt al-Mussalam nothing, not much has changed since then subhanallah unfortunately subhanallah, yes yes, so this continued and you cannot exaggerate the suffering of Bani Hashem it's difficult to comprehend how hard it must have been so we take so many things for granted for three years this went on and not only they were suffering on the one hand hunger and thirst and continually on the other hand they had difficulty even buying the things they paid high prices for them all of this on one side and on the other side they have to keep the Prophet SAW and under the leadership of Abu Talib al-Salam and remember that not all of them had the sort of faith that Abu Talib had but he commanded the authority and therefore he managed to keep Bani Hashem together out of loyalty and out of faith loyalty for the tribe, for the clan of Bani Hashem and a faith of having faith in the Prophet SAW to protect the Prophet so they had two things one is extreme suffering in terms of hunger and thirst and so on and the other one was the fact that they had to day and night they had to protect the Prophet SAW were they preparing themselves for migration because we know eventually the Holy Prophet SAW prepares and migrates to Yathrib not at that stage at that stage they were so this is the first three years of the boycott and how many years in total the boycott lost it? three years so this is within the first three years this is the atmosphere in Mecca for the Muslims for Bani Hashem and the first early Muslims the last three years because they were free before that they were being harassed when the mission of the Prophet SAW began intensified there wasn't a lot especially when he hadn't gone public and he used to come and pray in the mosque in the Ka'bah by the Ka'bah and his wife Khadija and his cousin Imam Ali SAW and later on he was joined by Ja'far ibn Abi Talib so he was the third one to embrace Islam if you like that is Khadija, Imam Ali and Ja'far ibn Abi Talib afterwards and of course Hamza the uncle of the Prophet SAW so at that time they were free but when he went public that annoyed Quraish and the thing which really annoyed Quraish which they resorted to the boycott thing was the fact that he started to gain more and more supporters more and more started to embrace Islam even the slaves of Quraish started embracing Islam members of Quraish started embracing Islam so they weren't happy about this and when they saw what was happening in Abyssinia for example and delegations of priests and bishops they used to come and embrace Islam they found it too much to swallow and they decided to go on this embargo and as we know Khadija, Ali SAW and Abu Talib both died not very far from each other incidents are not very far from each other before we come to this if I may I'd like to when has this hardship continued the suffering continued and in fact it says that they got to a stage where Abu Talib ran out of money and say the Khadija and the money that they had other possession they ran out of that money as well and things were becoming extremely difficult when Jibrail, Ali SAW descended upon the Prophet SAW and he informed him of if you like the good news Jibrail, Ali SAW informed the Prophet SAW that document the accursed document which they had these 40 chiefs or 80 chiefs had signed which is the terms of treaty of the embargo agreement Jibrail informed the Prophet that termites have been sort of eating into this document and they've shredded the document and it's going to turn into small pieces and the only remnants which are left are where the name of Allah was written so it's a miracle if you like a miracle and then Abu Talib SAW was very pleased by this he said to Quraish let's go sorry he said to Bani Hashem let's go to Quraish and Quraish were sitting by the Kaaba and so Abu Talib came with the Prophet SAW and Bani Hashem they've come to surrender they've come to surrender Muhammad and to accept our terms and he spoke to Quraish and he said to them Abu Talib that he Muhammad tells me that his lord has informed that this document that you've signed is no longer it's a safe place in the Kaaba he said it's been torn to pieces it's been eaten by termites and the only thing which is remaining are where the names of Allah are there he said they said to him no this is not true he said well if this is true then that means Muhammad doesn't lie and he is supported by his lord by Allah SWT and then you are false and if this turns out to be not true and the document is still intact then I will surrender Muhammad to you to do whatever you like they said this is fair so if the document is intact Abu Talib will surrender Muhammad to the Quraish to kill him but on the other hand if the document is not and it's been destroyed by the termites there will be no harassment against Bani Hashem and they agree to that and they went took it out of the box and they realized they saw that exactly what Abu Talib had told them that the document is almost nonexistent given only shreds of small pieces of paper with the exception of wherever they had mentioned the name of Allah SWT this was a huge blow to Quraish and as a result of that when the people saw this a lot of people started gathering and one of the people actually heard about it later on it says for Islam a Yawm-e-Aidin A'lamun min al-Nas A'lamun min al-Nas a huge number of people embraced Islam because of this they could see the truth of the Prophet SAW and the Lord of the Prophet Allah SWT stands by the Prophet SAW and whatever Quraish was saying is not Did they fulfill the agreement of Quraish? Did they lift the Margo? They could feel safe because that was their agreement and they could feel safe to go back to Bani Hashem to go back to their houses So why would they migrate if now Quraish would let them be why would they plan to eventually migrate to Yathrib? This goes about the fact that when Abu Talib dies and say the Khadijah die they they passed away after the incident of the letter Yes After they if you like they went back to their homes and they left the she'ab The damage had already been done because they were left without money both Khadijah and Abu Talib A'lam they were both broke they had no money whatsoever I mean they had it's all in the hands of Allah SWT of course they yes they spent if you like it was their duty to do whatever it takes so that they keep their people alive and they addressed that and they made sure that people do not lose if you like faith and Alhamdulillah when this miracle came all of Bani Hashan were free to go back to their businesses and to their homes and properties and so on but when Abu Talib A'lam dies and and say the Khadijah also died within couple of months if you like Archangel Jupra'il descends on the Prophet and says that it's time for you to leave Makkah because you don't have you've lost your main supporters if you like this was the reason basically instruction from Allah SWT that he should he should leave for Madinah and of course there is a lot of there is some discussion which needs to be made which probably we don't have time now which need to be made as to the kind of preparation that the Prophet SAW made before the migration to Madinah so in here again Imam Ali A'lam faced imminent death basically killing by 40 warriors if you like Quraysh warriors and despite that he accepted the challenge and accepted that he would sacrifice himself for the safety of the Prophet SAW