He Treated
His Priestly Guests With Particular Attention, And On His Death-Bed He
Wrote The Following Tetrastich:-
"I testify of Ahmad that he of a truth
"Is a prophet from Allah, the Maker of souls.
Be my age extended into his age,
I would be to him a Wazir and a cousin."
Then sealing the paper he committed it to the charge of the High
Priest, with a solemn injunction to deliver the letter, should an
opportunity offer, into the hands of the great Prophet; and that, if
the day be distant, the missive should be handed down from generation
to generation till it reached the person to whom it was addressed. The
house founded by him at Al-Madinah was committed to a priest of whose
descendants was Abu Ayyub the Ansari, the first person over whose
threshold the Apostle passed when he ended the Flight. Abu Ayyub had
also charge of the Tobba's letter, so that after three or four
centuries, it arrived at its destination.
Al-Madinah was ever well inclined to Mohammed. In[FN#20]
[p.352]the early part of his career, the emissaries of a tribe called
the Benu Abd al-Ashhal came from that town to Meccah, in order to make
a treaty with the Kuraysh, and the Apostle seized the opportunity of
preaching Al-Islam to them. His words were seconded by Ayyas bin Ma'az,
a youth of the tribe, and opposed by the chiefs of the embassy; who,
however, returned home without pledging themselves to either
party.[FN#21] Shortly afterwards a body of the Aus and the Khazraj came
to the pilgrimage of Meccah:
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