Before the Negus

The emigrants in Abyssinia were safe only for as long as the king allowed it, and Quraysh had come with gifts and an argument to change his mind. Their case was that these were young people who had abandoned the religion of their fathers and were not even Christians — so there was no reason to shelter them.

The Negus sent for the Muslims and asked them directly.

Ja'far answered. He did not begin with theology. He began with the social facts: we were a people of ignorance, worshipping idols, eating carrion, committing indecency, cutting off relatives, treating the neighbour badly, the strong among us consuming the weak.

Then the change, described in the same register: a man came from among us whose lineage and honesty we knew, and he called us to worship Allah alone, to speak truthfully, to keep trusts, to join relations, to be good to the neighbour, and to stop what we had been doing.

And then the consequence: so our people turned on us.

It is a very well-constructed answer. Quraysh had framed it as abandoning ancestral religion; Ja'far reframed it as leaving specific practices that his listener, a Christian king, would also regard as wrong.

The Negus asked whether he had any of this revelation with him. Ja'far recited a passage concerning Maryam and her son.

The reports describe the king weeping, and refusing to hand them over.

What this episode shows is a skill the early community needed and does not often get credit for: someone able to explain what had happened to them, accurately, to a person outside it.