{
 "id": "person/zayd-ibn-amr",
 "class": "person",
 "slug": "zayd-ibn-amr",
 "label": {
  "en": "Zayd ibn Amr",
  "ar": "زيد بن عمرو"
 },
 "summary": {
  "en": "A Meccan seeker who rejected the idols of his people and sought 'the religion of Abraham' years before the Prophet's mission — the tradition's example of the hanif, the indigenous monotheist.",
  "ar": "باحث مكي رفض أصنام قومه وطلب «دين إبراهيم» قبل بعثة النبي بسنين — مثال التراث على الحنيف، الموحّد البدوي."
 },
 "stub": false,
 "wings": [
  "people"
 ],
 "regions": [
  "arabia"
 ],
 "periods": [
  "period/prophetic-era"
 ],
 "tags": [],
 "aliases": [],
 "themes": [
  "creed",
  "islam-and-christianity",
  "tradition-versus-culture"
 ],
 "span": {
  "earliest": 559.9997946569745,
  "latest": 605.9993702813567
 },
 "display": {
  "start": {
   "edtf": "0560~",
   "calendar": "julian",
   "precision": "decade",
   "status": "tradition",
   "sources": [
    "source/ibn-ishaq-guillaume"
   ]
  },
  "end": {
   "edtf": "0605~",
   "calendar": "julian",
   "precision": "year",
   "status": "tradition",
   "note": "Died a few years before the first revelation, killed by brigands near al-Ta'if in one account.",
   "sources": [
    "source/ibn-ishaq-guillaume"
   ]
  }
 },
 "data": {
  "names": [
   {
    "kind": "full",
    "lang": "ar",
    "value": "زيد بن عمرو بن نفيل"
   }
  ],
  "gender": "male",
  "born": {
   "edtf": "0560~",
   "calendar": "julian",
   "precision": "decade",
   "status": "tradition",
   "sources": [
    "source/ibn-ishaq-guillaume"
   ]
  },
  "died": {
   "edtf": "0605~",
   "calendar": "julian",
   "precision": "year",
   "status": "tradition",
   "note": "Died a few years before the first revelation, killed by brigands near al-Ta'if in one account.",
   "sources": [
    "source/ibn-ishaq-guillaume"
   ]
  },
  "roles": [
   "preacher"
  ],
  "traditions": [
   "sunni"
  ],
  "story_roles": [
   {
    "role": "critic",
    "toward": "group/quraysh",
    "start": {
     "edtf": "0590~"
    },
    "status": "tradition",
    "note": "Publicly denounced idolatry and the sacrifice to idols; driven out of Mecca and forced to live in the hills above it.",
    "sources": [
     "source/ibn-ishaq-guillaume"
    ]
   },
   {
    "role": "witness",
    "start": {
     "edtf": "0610~"
    },
    "status": "tradition",
    "note": "Remembered in the tradition as a monotheist who died just before the mission he half-expected.",
    "sources": [
     "source/ibn-sad-tabaqat-bewley"
    ]
   }
  ],
  "faith": [
   {
    "value": "hanif",
    "basis": "tradition",
    "note": "The tradition holds him up as the hanif — one who sought Abraham's pure monotheism before Islam."
   }
  ],
  "sources": [
   "source/ibn-ishaq-guillaume",
   "source/ibn-sad-tabaqat-bewley"
  ],
  "status": {
   "review": "draft",
   "completeness": 2,
   "generated_by": "Devin; 2026-10-11"
  }
 },
 "prose": {
  "ar": {
   "sections": [
    {
     "heading": "نبذة",
     "markdown": "زيد بن عمرو مكي رفض أصنام قومه وطلب «دين إبراهيم» — ومات قبيل الوحي، في أشد ما يرويه التراث من كاد ولم يبلغ."
    },
    {
     "heading": "الحياة",
     "markdown": "تحكي السيرة أن زيدًا من بني عدي وقف في وليمة قريش فأبى ما ذُبح على اسم الآلهة: «لا آكل مما تذبحون على أسمائها». فطلب التوحيد الخالص في الشام وما بعدها، وردّ اليهودية والنصرانية كما وجدهما، فأخرجه قومه من مكة إلى الشعاب فوقها {cite:ibn-ishaq-guillaume}.\n\nومات قبل الوحي الأول بسنين — في رواية قتلته قطاع قرب الطائف {cite:ibn-ishaq-guillaume}. وتذكر الرواية أن النبي سُئل عنه بعد ذلك فأجاب أنه يُبعث يوم القيامة أمةً وحده {cite:ibn-sad-tabaqat-bewley}."
    },
    {
     "heading": "الأثر",
     "markdown": "زيد نافذة المعرض على «الحنفاء» — القلة من موحّدي الجاهلية الذين حفظتهم المصادر: برهان أن السؤال الذي أجاب عنه الإسلام كان يُسأل في مكة من قبل."
    },
    {
     "heading": "للزوار الصغار",
     "markdown": "قبل الإسلام قال رجل في مكة «لا أؤمن بهذه الأصنام» فأخرجه أهله من مدينته. مات قبيل أن يصله الجواب بقليل."
    }
   ],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/zayd-ibn-amr",
    "lang": "ar",
    "source_lang": "en",
    "translators": []
   }
  },
  "en": {
   "sections": [
    {
     "heading": "Brief",
     "markdown": "Zayd ibn Amr was a Meccan who refused the idols of his people and searched for \"the religion of Abraham\" — dying just before the revelation arrived, in the tradition's most poignant near-miss."
    },
    {
     "heading": "Life",
     "markdown": "The sira tells that Zayd, of the clan of Adi, stood at a feast of Quraysh and refused the meat sacrificed to idols: \"I will not eat what you slaughter in the name of your gods.\" He searched Syria and beyond for a pure monotheism, rejected Judaism and Christianity as he found them, and was driven by his own people out of Mecca to live in the hills above it {cite:ibn-ishaq-guillaume}.\n\nHe died a few years before the first revelation — in one account killed by brigands near al-Ta'if {cite:ibn-ishaq-guillaume}. The tradition remembers the Prophet later asked about him, and answering that he would be raised as a nation by himself {cite:ibn-sad-tabaqat-bewley}."
    },
    {
     "heading": "Legacy",
     "markdown": "Zayd is the museum's window onto the *hanifs* — the handful of pre-Islamic monotheists the sources preserve: proof that the question Islam answered was already being asked in Mecca."
    },
    {
     "heading": "For young visitors",
     "markdown": "Before Islam, a man in Mecca said \"I don't believe in these idols\" and was thrown out of his own city for it. He died just before the answer arrived."
    }
   ],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/zayd-ibn-amr",
    "lang": "en",
    "source_lang": "en",
    "translators": []
   }
  }
 },
 "degree": 6,
 "contemporaries": [
  "person/abdullah-ibn-salam",
  "person/abu-lahab",
  "person/abu-sufyan-ibn-harb",
  "person/abu-talib",
  "person/al-walid-ibn-al-mughira",
  "person/halima-al-sadiyya",
  "person/khadija",
  "person/mutim-ibn-adi",
  "person/sumayya-bint-khayyat",
  "person/umm-ayman",
  "person/waraqa-ibn-nawfal",
  "person/utba-ibn-rabia"
 ],
 "connections": [
  {
   "to": "group/banu-adi",
   "type": "member_of",
   "inverse": false
  },
  {
   "to": "group/quraysh",
   "type": "member_of",
   "inverse": false
  },
  {
   "to": "place/taif",
   "type": "traveled_to",
   "inverse": false,
   "note": "Exiled to the hills above Mecca in the al-Ta'if direction by his own people.",
   "sources": [
    "source/ibn-ishaq-guillaume"
   ]
  }
 ],
 "related": [
  "person/abdullah-ibn-abbas",
  "person/uthman-ibn-affan",
  "person/waraqa-ibn-nawfal",
  "event/battle-of-badr",
  "event/battle-of-hunayn",
  "event/battle-of-uhud",
  "event/conquest-of-mecca",
  "event/journey-to-taif"
 ],
 "license": {
  "prose": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
  "data": "CC0 1.0"
 }
}