King Nebus then spoke:
“O Meccan immigrants, tell me… Why have you migrated to my country? What is your current state and condition? Since you are not businessmen, what are you doing here? Give me some information about your Rasul. What does he teach? What does he command? Why don’t you greet me like your fellow Meccan friends greet me?”
Calm and collected, Hadhrat Jafar answered:
O King Nebus! Allow me to ask three questions to these Meccan men before your presence… Based on their answers, if you feel that we are wrong, then deal with us as you like! But if you see that we are right then we pledge from you that you don’t heed the words of these men!”
Upon the King’s consent, Jafar continued:
“Ask them O Nebus, ask them if we are slaves who ought to be returned to their master?”
Nebus asked Amr, “Are they slaves?”
“No, they are free and dignified men!”
Jafar moved on to his second question:
“O Nebus, ask them if we have unlawfully spilt anyone’s blood for which we must be handed over to the victim’s family?”
Nebus asked, “Have they unlawfully spilt anyone’s blood?”
“No, they haven’t spilt a single drop of blood!”
Jafar then asked his third and final question:
“O King Nebus, ask him if we have any debts, loans or liabilities for which we are accountable?”
Nebus, who was already convinced of the innocence of the Muslims – especially after Abu Talib’s letter - asked them:
“O Amr, do these men owe anything to anyone, even if they owe a single coin of gold, tell me, for I am going to pay it in their stead!”
Amr was demoralized, “No, they don’t owe anything to anyone…”
“So, then what is your problem with them?” the King asked…
“They used to have the same beliefs and engage in the same practices with us in the past. But now they have forsaken their religion and taken up some other belief! For this we want to punish them!”
Jafar could no longer remain silent:
“You condemn people for their thoughts and beliefs and want to punish them simply because they want to practice their faith without causing any harm to anyone? Shame on you for being so ignorant and such a bigot!”
The King then asked Jafar, “And why have you changed your religion? What is this new religion? Since neither your people nor my people are of this religion, what is this new belief system?”
Hadhrat Jafar started to explain the religion of Islam:
“O King Nebus! We were people totally absorbed in a dark state of ignorance. We used to worship idols and engage in many evil acts… We’d spend our days drinking and seeking lustrous pleasures, completely driven by carnal desires! The rich and the powerful had the authority, while the weak and the poor had no right to live!
This state went on until Allah sent a man whom we all knew as the Trustworthy, a man whose lineage, righteousness, kindness and grace we all witnessed, as His Rasul to us… This Rasul invited us to believe in the Oneness of Allah, to worship Allah, and to forego the stones which we and our forefathers worshipped as idols…
He commanded us to talk only the truth, to not deceive the Trust given to us, to do right by our relatives, to be lawful to our neighbors, to stay away from sins and blood spill, and from all forms of indecency…
He instructed us to worship Allah without assigning any partners to Him, and taught us that all power belongs only to Allah, that all things take place by the will and order of Allah, that Allah is the creator of the heavens and the earth, and taught us to do salat and give alms for Allah!
As a result, we believed in this Rasul and started to worship the One creator without assigning any partners to Him… We changed our lifestyle to observe the laws of Allah, taking care to engage in what has been taught to us as right and to stay away from what has been forbidden…
Because of this our clan and tribe started to oppose us with severe enmity and subjected us to all forms of torture. They did everything in their power to stop us from worshipping Allah and to make us worship the idols instead… They made us miserable in our own homes…
They persecuted and tortured us in myriad ways just to pull us back into the dark and evil world from whence we came… Their sole purpose is to divagate us from the right path back to the heinous, destructive, villainous path on which they are on…
Due to this we were forced to leave our homes and seek refuge in your kingdom… We preferred you to all other kings and your kingdom to all other kingdoms, for we trusted your justice and believed that you will never do wrong by us…
As for why we don’t prostrate before you… We greeted you with the salam of the Rasul of Allah… This is the way we greet each other, and this is how those who go to paradise will greet each other…
To not prostrate to anyone besides our Allah comprises the core of our faith, the price for which we have paid with our homes and loved ones… This is the command of our religion… Hence, we trust that you will show understanding to us…”
The King asked, “Do you have an inscription of the commands of your religion with you?”
“Yes” answered Jafar, who had some pages with the verses of the Quran with him…
“Read it to me” commanded King Nebus…
Hadhrat Jafar started to read from the chapter al-Ankabut:
1. Alif, Lam, Meem! (His knowledge in His knowledge with His knowledge!)
2. Do people think they can get away with just saying, “We believe” and not be confronted with who they really are through trial!
3. Indeed, those before them were also tested with objects of trial... Allah (not an external god-deity but their very essential reality) certainly knows and will expose those who are truthful (to their word) and those who are liars.
4. Or do those who do bad deeds think they can outrun Us... What bad judgment they have!
5. Whoever hopes to meet with Allah (to experience the manifestations of the One referenced as ‘Allah’ in one’s consciousness, according to one’s natural disposition), indeed (let them know that) the term of the bodily life, which is also Allah’s discretion, will come to an end! HU is the Sami, the Aleem.
6. So, whoever strives with determination (to live this faith; this reality) strives only for his own being. (The greatest Jihad {strife} is the one done against one’s self!) Indeed, Allah is Ghani from the worlds (in terms of His Absolute Essence, Allah is free from being conditioned and limited by the manifested compositions of His Names)![1]
Raptured by the power and eloquence of the Quran, the King and the priests started to shed tears…
Hadhrat Jafar then continued with the chapter al-Kahf… Tears were now flowing down Nebashi’s eyes soaking his beard and chest… He began to weep louder and cried, “By Allah, these words come from the same enlightened source from which Moses and Jesus came!”
He then turned to the Meccan ambassadors and commanded:
“Leave now! And know that from now on, I shall never allow anyone to harm them!”
Amr and Abdullah were dismissed from the King’s palace. Their plan had turned against them. But Amr was not willing to let it go that easily… He turned to Abdullah and said, “Watch me expose their great sin to Nebus and get our revenge!”
“Don’t!” warned Abdullah… “We are relatives after all… It will not look befitting on our behalf to create conflict in a foreign land! What do you plan to do?”
Amr was determined, “I’m going to tell Nebus what they think of Jesus! Then the tables will turn!”
The next morning Amr went back to the King and told him the Muslims claimed improper things about Jesus (pbuh). He said, “Call them and ask them if you don’t believe me!”
The King called the Muslims back to his court and asked them what they thought of Jesus.
Jafar said, “There is no such thing as our thoughts. We only say what Allah has taught us through His Rasul… and regarding Jesus, Allah says:
“Jesus is the servant, the Rasul, and the spirit of Allah who was born from virgin Mary…”
Nebus was pleased with this answer, despite others who were not as pleased…
After this the Muslims lived happily in Abyssinia for many years, where they were able to freely practice their faith…