حصار شعب أبي طالب

When individual persecution failed to break the Muslim community, the Quraysh escalated to collective punishment at the clan level. In approximately the seventh year of prophethood (617 CE), the leading Qurayshi clans formalized a comprehensive boycott against Banu Hashim and Banu Muttalib — the clans of the Prophet ﷺ — and inscribed its terms in a document hung inside the Kaaba. The terms were total: no trade, no marriage, no social interaction, no sale of food. The entire clan — Muslim and non-Muslim alike — was targeted. The Quraysh calculated that starvation and social isolation would eventually force Abu Talib to withdraw his protection of the Prophet ﷺ. The entire Banu Hashim community withdrew to a valley on the outskirts of Mecca called Shi'b Abi Talib and lived there for approximately three years under genuine deprivation. The narrations record children crying from hunger within earshot of Mecca. Khadijah spent much of her accumulated wealth during this period providing for the community — a sacrifice that both expressed her faith and contributed to her physical deterioration. Some compassionate Meccans, including Hakim ibn Hizam, secretly sent food through hidden routes at night. The three years of confinement and hunger left physical marks on everyone who endured them. After approximately three years, a group of Qurayshi leaders organized against the boycott — moved by the sight of children suffering and a recognition that the covenant had overreached. Hisham ibn Amr persuaded five men of standing, including Zuhayr ibn Abi Umayyah and Mut'im ibn Adi, to publicly repudiate it at the Kaaba. An additional narration, recorded in Ibn Hisham, describes the Prophet ﷺ informing Abu Talib that Allah had sent insects to consume the document, leaving only the words containing Allah's name. When the document was retrieved, it was found exactly as described. The boycott collapsed from within. But its cost had been enormous: within weeks of its end, both Abu Talib and Khadijah died — the two people who had protected and sustained the Prophet ﷺ more than anyone — inaugurating the Year of Sorrow. The boycott reveals the nature of Qurayshi opposition to Islam: not purely theological but economic, social, and political — a defense of the existing order against a message that was demonstrably succeeding in changing minds.