What do you have to say

They tied him to a pillar of the mosque. Not a cell, not a compound outside the city — a pillar in the building where the community prayed five times a day, so that everyone came and went around him.

On the first day the Prophet ﷺ came to him and asked: what do you have to say, Thumamah?

His answer was, in substance: if you kill me you kill a man with blood behind him; if you show favour you show it to a man who is grateful; and if you want money, name your figure.

The Prophet ﷺ left him. The next day he came back and asked the same question, and got the same answer. He left him again. The day after, the same.

Then he told them to let him go.

That is the part to hold on to. He was not released because he converted, and he was not offered release in exchange for converting. He gave the same defiant answer three times and was untied anyway.

Thumamah went out to some palm trees near the mosque, washed, came back, and accepted Islam.

What he said then is worth noting for what it admits: that there had been no face on earth more hateful to him than this one, and now there was none he loved more — and the same of the religion, and the same of the city.

Then he told the Prophet ﷺ that his cavalry had taken him while he was on his way to perform the pilgrimage, and asked what he should do. He was told to go and perform it.

The report is in both Sahih collections.