Note 20 — Chapter II · STUDY OF THE LIFE OF MUḤAMMAD CONSIDERED AS A PREACHER OF ISLAM.

Though warned by the Quraysh of the dangerous influence that Muḥammad might exercise over him if he entered into conversation with him, he followed the Prophet to his house one day, after watching him at prayer by the Kaʻbah. Muḥammad expounded to him the doctrines of Islam, and Ṭufayl left Mecca full of zeal for the new faith. On his return home he succeeded in converting his father and his wife, but found his fellow-tribesmen unwilling to abandon their old idolatrous worship. Disheartened at the ill-success of his mission, he returned to the Prophet and besought him to call down the curse of God on the Banū Daws; but Muḥammad encouraged him to persevere in his efforts, saying, “Return to thy people and summon them to the faith, but deal gently with them.” At the same time he prayed, “Oh God! guide the Banū Daws in the right way.” The success of Ṭufayl’s propaganda was such that in the year A.H. 7 he came to Medina with between seventy and eighty families of his tribesmen who had been won over to the faith of Islam, and after the triumphal entry of Muḥammad into Mecca, Ṭufayl set fire to the block of wood that had hitherto been venerated as the idol of the tribe.20