On the way back to Madinah, the Prophet lay down to rest under a tree, his sword hanging from a branch. The rest of the people fell asleep under the trees. Suddenly the idyll was disrupted with the arrival of a polytheist. He crept up and grabbed the Prophet’s sword and asked the Prophet menacingly, “Do you fear me?”“Not at all,” the Prophet replied, barely awake, but not at all perturbed.

The polytheist asked, “Who will save you from me now?” “Allah,” the Prophet replied calmly. The sword fell from the stranger’s hand, and the Prophet seized it and posed the same question to him, “Who will save you from me now?” “You have me now,” the failed executioner said, pleading for mercy, and mercy was shown. Then the Prophet asked the man to place his faith in the oneness of Allah, but he demurred, pledging instead to never fight the Muslims nor to support others against Islam. He walked away as a free man, and to his people he said, “I come to you after meeting the best of mankind.”