do not take My enemy and your enemy for friends...

do not take My enemy and your enemy for friends: would you offer them love…” [^1] Shaykh Tabarsi has narrated from Imam Ja’far Sadiq (a.s.) that when Abu Sufyan, who was then in Shaam, heard that the Quraish had fought the Khaza and broken the truce with the Prophet, he came to Medina and waited on the Prophet, beseeching him to spare the blood of his kindred, and to renew and extend the truce.

The Prophet replied, “If you have not yourselves broken the true, I shall still adhere to it.” Abu Sufyan next applied to Abu Bakr and Umar, and begged them to guarantee the security of Quraish. They replied that no one could do anything without the permission of the Prophet.

He then went to his daughter, Umm Habiba, one of the Prophet’s wives, and he was about to sit down on the carpet but she drew it away, saying, “The Messenger of Allah (S) has been seated on this carpet, and I will never allow you, an unclean idolater to sit on it.” At this severe repulse, he went to Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, and begged her to heighten her renown by confirming the treaty with Quraish and extending the period of truce.

She replied that she would pledge whatever the Prophet did. He finally wished the young Imams, Hasan and Husain should be permitted to guarantee to safety of his tribe, but Fatima replied that they would do nothing without the sanction of their grandfather. Last of all he applied to Ali, who told him to go himself to the door of the Masjid and proclaim that he, Abu Sufyan, guaranteed the security of the Quraish, and then start for Mecca.

On reaching home he reported the rebuffs he had met with, and as a last resort, what he had done at the suggestion of Ali.

At this, the Quraish exclaimed, “Ali has fooled you, you have stood security for your own tribe?” The Prophet constituted Abu Lubabah bin Abdul Manzar governor of Medina, and commenced his march after the afternoon prayers, on Friday the second day of the blessed month of Ramadan, having first summoned the chiefs of the tribes and ordered them to assemble their people and join him at Mecca.

It is narrated from Imam Muhammad Baqir (a.s.) that at the commencement of the march, the army observed the fast, but on arriving at Kara Naeem, he ordered the people to eat by day, setting the example himself, and declaring some who will keep the fast, disobedient. And they and their progeny were named thus till Judgment Day. Imam Muhammad Baqir (a.s.) said: I know their descendants.