Abu Lahab

Abu Lahab, Abd al-Uzza ibn Abd al-Muttalib, was an uncle of the Prophet who openly turned against him, together with his wife Umm Jamil. The tradition preserves their enmity so clearly that Surat al-Masad names their household.

A son of Abd al-Muttalib and brother of Abu Talib, Abu Lahab was so close to the Prophet that the account singles him out: the sira records him following Muhammad through the markets of Mecca and telling people not to believe him ¹. During the boycott he sided against his own clan.

Surat al-Masad, which commentators agree is about him and his wife, is the only surah in the Book aimed at a named opponent ¹. He died of illness shortly after Badr, and the narrative reads his death as the fulfilment of the surah ¹.

His story is the museum's sharpest example of a household divided: a nephew proclaiming and an uncle disowning him, within the house of Banu Hashim itself.

The book notes that the first woman to nurse the Prophet after his mother was Thuwayba, a freedwoman of Abu Lahab, who used the milk of her own son, named Masruh ^{2 3 4}. The book counts him the sixth of the ten sons of Abd al-Muttalib ⁵.

Abu Lahab took the lead in confronting the call. He disrupted the first gathering of Banu Hashim, when the Prophet invited his closest kin (the call to the closest kin), and on al-Safa he said, "Ruin to you for the rest of the day." Surat al-Masad was then revealed (the proclamation on al-Safa) ^{6 7}. During the pilgrimage seasons he followed the Prophet to people's encampments, to 'Ukaz, Majanna and Dhu al-Majaz, telling them not to obey him, for he was a renegade liar ⁸. He used to pelt the Prophet with stones until his heels bled ⁹. His wife Umm Jamil was among the fiercest enemies of the Prophet ⁹.

Of the nobles of Quraysh, Abu Lahab alone did not go out to Badr. He sent a man who owed him money in his place (Preparations before Badr) ¹⁰.

When news of the defeat reached him, his wife, Umm al-Fadl, struck him with a pole and split his head. He died seven nights later and was left for three days with no one approaching his body. Then they pushed him into a pit with a stick and pelted him with stones (After Badr) ¹¹.

The Sheikh mentions Abu Lahab as the man about whom revelation came, reports on the Prophet's tongue a complaint of being hurt through his family, and says that Abu Lahab was the Prophet's uncle and a disbeliever, yet the Prophet did not like to harm anyone (needs_source) ¹².

Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy recounts remarks by Abu Lahab about the Prophet, and notes that his people had known the Prophet for forty years before the mission (needs_source: the exchange is garbled in the automatic transcript, and Abu Lahab's words are not repeated here) ¹³.

He recounts that Abu Lahab, the Prophet's uncle, confronted him sharply; the sheikh describes this as an attack made with heat, which is his own judgement, and the Prophet's reply is not clear in the automatic transcript (needs_source) ¹⁴.