How should there be room therein for repentance?

How should there be room therein for repentance? Henceforth I will banish repentance from this heart. How should I repent of the life everlasting?" Love is the All-subduer, and I am subdued by Love: By Love's blindness I have been made bright like the sun. O fierce wind, before Thee I am a straw: How can I know where I shall fall? Whether I am Bilal or the new moon, I am running on and following the course of Thy sun. What has the moon to do with stoutness or thinness ?

She runs at the heels of the sun, like a shadow. The lovers have fallen into a fierce-torrent: They have set their hearts on the ordinance of Love. (They are) like the millstone turning round and round Day and night and moaning incessantly. [^2] * * * Islamic historians have given the names of the Raid of ar-Raji ` and the Day of ar-Raji ` respectively to a famous historical event and the day on which it occurred, and there is an interesting and fascinating story attached to it.

A group from the `Adal and al-Qarah tribes who were apparently from the same ancestral stock as the Quraysh and who dwelt in the proximity of Mecca came to the Messenger of Allah in the third year of the Hijrah and said: "Some people from our tribe have chosen Islam, so send a group of Muslims to us that they may instruct us in the meaning of the religion, teach us the Qur'an and inform us of the principles and laws of Islam." The Messenger of Allah sent six of his companions along with them for this purpose, and he entrusted the leadership of this group to a man called Marthad ibn Abi Marthad al-Ghanawi, or else to a man called `Asim ibn Thabit ibn Abi ' l-Aqlah.

The envoys of the Messenger set out in the company of this mission that had come to Medina, till they reached the area which was where the Hadhil tribe lived, and there they halted.[^3] The friends of the Messenger had settled down to sleep without leaving anything from anywhere, when all at once a group from the Hudhayl tribe fell upon them like a thunderbolt with their swords drawn.

It became clear that the mission that had come to Medina had either had the intention of acting deceitfully from the beginning, or else had become despondent on reaching this place and had had a change of heart. At any rate, it is known that these people sided with the Hudhayl tribe with the aim of seizing these six envoys.