Return to Mecca under the Protection of Mutim ibn Adi

# The Protection of Mut'im ibn Adi

Returning Without Protection

When the Prophet ﷺ returned from Taif in approximately the tenth year of prophethood, he was in a position without precedent in Arabian society: a man without a protector. His uncle Abu Talib had died earlier that year — the same year Khadijah died, a year the seerah calls 'Am al-Huzn (the Year of Grief). Abu Talib had not accepted Islam but had provided the Prophet ﷺ with tribal protection throughout the Meccan period, using his standing as a senior member of the Banu Hashim to shield his nephew from the Quraysh's most extreme actions. With Abu Talib dead, the protection was gone.

In Arabian tribal culture, a man without a protector was a man anyone could harm without consequence. The Prophet ﷺ could not return to Mecca without tribal protection — to do so would be to place himself at the mercy of the Quraysh, who had already attempted various means to silence him and would not hesitate to act if he had no protector. He attempted to secure the protection (jiwar) of several tribal leaders before entering Mecca. He approached three of the most prominent chiefs of Mecca one by one and was refused.

The Three Refusals

The Prophet ﷺ sent a messenger to Akhnas ibn Shariq, asking for his protection to re-enter Mecca. Akhnas refused, saying he was a confederate (halif) of the Quraysh, not of original Qurayshi stock, and that a confederate could not grant protection against the original tribe. He went to Suhayl ibn Amr (the same Suhayl who would later negotiate the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah on the Qurayshi side). Suhayl also refused. He went to Mut'im ibn Adi of the Banu Nawfal — one of the senior figures of the Quraysh who had been among those who tore up the economic boycott document against the Banu Hashim.

Mut'im ibn Adi agreed.

The Night of Jiwar

Mut'im ibn Adi announced his protection of the Prophet ﷺ publicly, as required by Arabian custom: the granting of jiwar had to be declared openly to be valid. He armed his sons and nephews and they went to the mosque. The Prophet ﷺ entered Mecca and went to the Kaaba and performed tawaf. Mut'im sat with his armed sons in the mosque while the Prophet ﷺ completed his circuits. When the Quraysh saw him, they asked: "Is this a man under your protection or have you followed him?" Mut'im said: "Under my protection." They left the Prophet ﷺ alone.

Mut'im ibn Adi was not a Muslim. He was a polytheist who had granted protection to the Prophet ﷺ for reasons of his own — perhaps old ties to the Banu Hashim, perhaps genuine discomfort with the extremity of the Quraysh's persecution, perhaps a sense of honor that could not refuse a man who had asked correctly and whom others had already refused. Whatever his reasons, his protection was real and he maintained it until his death.

The Prophet's Gratitude

Mut'im ibn Adi died before the Battle of Badr and therefore before he ever had the opportunity to accept or refuse Islam. At the Battle of Badr, the Prophet ﷺ took a number of Qurayshi captives. In the discussion of what to do with them, the Prophet ﷺ said: "If Mut'im ibn Adi were alive and had interceded for these people, I would have released them all for his sake." The statement — made about a man who had died a polytheist — is one of the most striking acknowledgments of a non-Muslim's good deed in the entire seerah. The Prophet ﷺ remembered Mut'im's protection, valued it at the price of all the Badr captives, and said so publicly.

The gratitude was consistent with how the Prophet ﷺ acknowledged good deeds throughout his life. He had acknowledged the pre-Islamic institution of Hilf al-Fudul (the Alliance of the Virtuous) as something he would participate in even after Islam. He had wept for Khadijah years after her death and honored her friends. He had prayed over the Negus who had sheltered the first emigrants. The consistent pattern was that the Prophet ﷺ remembered and honored those who had treated him or the Muslim community well — regardless of their faith, regardless of the passage of time.

The Principle of Jiwar in the Seerah

The episode of Mut'im ibn Adi's jiwar is studied in Islamic jurisprudence as an example of how the pre-Islamic Arab institution of tribal protection was functional and recognized by the Prophet ﷺ — he accepted it, relied on it, and did not consider it beneath him to seek it from a polytheist. The institution of jiwar translated into Islamic law as the concept of aman — safe conduct or protection — extended to non-Muslims entering Muslim territory, and as the concept of dhimma — the ongoing protection of non-Muslim communities under Muslim governance. The willingness to receive protection from a non-Muslim and to honor that protection fully, combined with the later willingness to honor the memory of the protector even after his death, established the principle that acts of justice and kindness carry their own worth regardless of the faith of the person who performs them.

The Context: Taif and the Return

The Prophet ﷺ had traveled to Taif alone — without Abu Bakr or any senior companion — seeking protection after Abu Talib's death had left him exposed. The Thaqif had rejected and mocked him, and children had chased him from the city throwing stones until blood ran to his ankles. He had sheltered in an orchard belonging to Utba and Shayba ibn Rabia, whose young servant Addas had come to him with grapes and had become Muslim in that brief encounter. He had made one of the most beautiful supplications in the seerah — turning his vulnerability entirely toward Allah — and then had faced the practical question of how to get back into Mecca without being killed. Zaid ibn Haritha had suggested asking for protection before they entered. The three refusals had come one after another. Then Mut'im ibn Adi had said yes. The protection that returned the Prophet ﷺ to Mecca — the protection that made everything from his return to Mecca to the Hijra to the entire Medinan period possible — came from a polytheist who would never see the community it enabled, and whom the Prophet ﷺ remembered at Badr with the words: for his sake, I would have released them all.

**Sources:** Ibn Hisham, *al-Sira al-Nabawiyya*; Ibn Kathir, *al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah*; Ibn Sa'd, *al-Tabaqat al-Kubra*; al-Tabari, *Tarikh al-Umam wal-Muluk*; Sahih al-Bukhari (Kitab al-Jihad, narration on Badr captives)