The Protection After Ta’if
When the Prophet returned from Ta’if (619 CE) — the painful year of grief in which he had lost both Khadijah and Abu Talib — he could not re-enter Mecca without tribal protection. The Qurayshi custom required a protector (jiwaar) to vouch for a man’s safety on Meccan soil.
Several leaders refused. Mutim ibn ‘Adi — not yet a Muslim, a Qurayshi elder of the Nawfal clan — accepted to provide protection. He armed his sons and escorted the Prophet into the Ka’ba, publicly announcing the protection before the tribal leaders. The Prophet could then complete his worship and resume his mission.
Years later, at the Battle of Badr, when seventy Qurayshi prisoners were captured, the Prophet said: “If Mutim ibn ‘Adi had been alive and spoken to me on behalf of these dirty ones, I would have freed them all for his sake.” The Prophet kept that debt of honor alive even after Mutim died.
Hearing al-Tur: The Surah That Opened His Heart
Jubayr himself narrated: “I came to the Messenger of Allah upon his return from Ta’if, and I heard him reciting Surah al-Tur in the Maghrib prayer. When he reached [the verse]: ‘Or were they created from nothing, or are they the creators? Or did they create the heavens and earth?’ (52:35-36) — my heart was seized with something.”
He did not convert immediately. But the philosophical force of those verses — the trilemma about existence itself — lodged in him. Surah al-Tur’s opening argument against disbelief is considered one of the Quran’s most logically structured passages: either things came from nothing, or they created themselves, or they were created. The first two are impossible; the third requires a Creator.
Transmitter of Genealogy and Hadith
After his conversion, Jubayr ibn Mutim became known as one of the most authoritative sources on Qurayshi genealogy — a discipline of great importance in early Islamic jurisprudence for questions of lineage, marriage, and inheritance. He transmitted hadith on prayer, the Prophet’s physical description, and key theological matters.
See also: Seerah Abu Sufyan, Seerah Sad Ibn Abi Waqqas, Seerah Khadijah, Seerah Abu Bakr, Hijra, Quran Sciences