Such sharing...

Such sharing, he further said, would guarantee the equitable distribution of wealth in the community. Many of the rich Arabs were money-lenders; or rather, they were “loan sharks.” They had grown rich by lending money to the poor classes at exorbitant rates of interest. The poor could never repay their debts, and were thus held in economic servitude in perpetuity.

Sharing their ill-gotten wealth with the same people they had been exploiting, was for them, tantamount to a “sacrilege.” By suggesting to them that they share their wealth with the poor, Muhammad had tampered with a hornets' nest! For the Arabs, all these were new and unfamiliar ideas; in fact they were revolutionary. By preaching such revolutionary ideas, Muhammad had infuriated the old establishment. Most furious amongst them was the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh.

Its members were the leading usurers and capitalists of Makkah, and they were the high priests of the pagan pantheon. In Muhammad and the message of Islam, they saw a threat to their social system which was based upon privilege and force. They, therefore, resolved to maintain the status quo. In the years to come, they were to form the spearhead of an implacable war against Islam, and of die-hard opposition to Muhammad.

But there were also a few individuals who found a strong appeal in the new ideas which Muhammad was introducing, collectively called Islam. In fact, they found them so irresistible, that they accepted them. Among the earliest converts to Islam were Yasir; his wife, Sumayya; and their son, Ammar. They were the first family all members of which accepted Islam simultaneously, thus making up the First Muslim Family . Islam held special appeal for the depressed classes in Makkah.

When members of these classes became Muslim, they also became aware that as pagans they were despised and rejected by the highly class-conscious and race-conscious aristocracy of Makkah but Islam gave them a new self-esteem. As Muslims they found a new pride in themselves Most of the early converts to Islam were “poor and weak.” But there were a few rich Muslims also like Hudhayfa bin Utba and Arqam bin Abil-Arqam.

And all those men whom Abu Bakr brought into Islam – Uthman, Talha, Zubayr, Abdur Rahman ibn Auf, Saad ibn Abi Waqqas and Abu Obaidah ibn al-Jarrah – were also rich and powerful. They were members of the various clans of the Quraysh.