Abu Sufyan's mission to Medina

Dreading what it had done in the breach of the treaty, Quraysh sent Abu Sufyan ibn Harb to Medina to tighten the pact and extend its term ¹. The Prophet returned him nothing, and he found no intercessor in Abu Bakr or Umar, so he proclaimed protection for himself in the mosque and went back to Quraysh empty-handed ².

Abu Sufyan met Budayl ibn Warqa with a party of Khuza'a at Asfan — two stages from Mecca — and asked when they had set out; Budayl told him they were wandering these valleys, concealing that they had come from Medina ³. He went on until he entered Medina ¹.

Abu Sufyan went in to his daughter Umm Habiba; when he moved to sit on the Prophet's bedding she folded it away from him, saying: "It is the Messenger of God's bedding, and you are a polytheist, ritually unclean; I did not want you to sit on it" ¹.

Then he went in to the Prophet and spoke, and the Prophet returned him nothing ¹. He went out to Abu Bakr and asked him to intercede for him; he refused ¹. He went out to Umar and found him fierce: "I intercede for you with the Messenger of God? By God, if I found nothing but ants I would fight you with them" ². Then he came to Fatima and found her small son with her; he asked her to have the boy grant him protection, and she said nothing ⁴.

Then he went in to Ali, who advised him: "Rise and proclaim protection among the people" — that is, announce the amnesty yourself — so Abu Sufyan stood and said in the mosque: "people, I have proclaimed protection among you" ⁴. He mounted his camel and returned to Quraysh and told them what he had met; Quraysh's answer was: we do not think you have brought us anything ⁴.

The last Qurashi mediation had failed, and nothing remained for Quraysh but to wait for what would come ⁴. In the same account is Ibn Hisham's note that the phrase "the most hostile enemy" in Abu Sufyan's address to Quraysh is from other than Ibn Ishaq ⁴.