The objection
“He wanted power, or wealth.”
In its strongest terms: orphaned of father and mother (Ibn Hisham, I, 158, 168), a shepherd for the people of Mecca for a few qirats in his youth (Bukhari 2262), he ﷺ dies having conquered Mecca with ten thousand men and received the delegations of the tribes (Ibn Hisham, II, 400, 559). In Medina he governs, concludes pacts, leads armies. His course has every appearance of a successful ambition, and religion would have been its instrument.
The answer
Kingship was offered to him ﷺ, and he refused it
The sources of the sira report that in Mecca, Quraysh offered him everything an ambitious man could want. He ﷺ answered with the Qur’an.
Utba ibn Rabi’a came to offer him, on behalf of his people, wealth, honour, kingship, and even a physician if he was ill. The Prophet ﷺ answered him by reciting the opening of sura 41 (Ibn Hisham, I, 293-294; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 501-502). Ibn Ishaq gives this account through a broken chain; another version, from the Companion Jabir, is related by Abu Ya’la “with a good chain”, according to al-Salihi (al-Salihi, II, 335), while Ibn Kathir finds in it “something to criticise” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 502). An assembly of the notables of Quraysh made him the same offers, wealth, kingship, healing, before demanding miracles of him (Ibn Hisham, I, 295-296).
Later, after what he had endured at Ta’if, he ﷺ presents himself to the tribes who came for the fairs. The Banu Amir ask him for power after him. He refuses: “the matter belongs to God, who places it where He wills” (Ibn Hisham, I, 425). He needed them; an ambitious man would have promised.
He ﷺ chose persecution
A man who wants power negotiates. He ﷺ chose trial, for himself and for his own:
- his Companions tortured, Bilal under the rock, repeating “One, One” (Ibn Hisham, I, 318);
- the boycott of the Banu Hashim and the Banu al-Muttalib, shut away for two or three years in the ravine of Abu Talib (Ibn Hisham, I, 353; Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 147);
- Ta’if, the day he ﷺ names when Aisha asks him whether he had known one harder than Uhud (Bukhari 3231);
- the forced departure: “had I not been driven out of you, I would not have left”, he says, addressing Mecca (Tirmidhi 3925).
The master of Medina ﷺ carries the bricks
In Medina, when the mosque is built, he ﷺ carries the bricks with his Companions (Bukhari 3906). He declines to take the land of two orphans as a gift, and buys it (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, VII, 246).
He ﷺ dies without fortune
The master of Medina ﷺ dies without fortune, his armour pledged to a Jew (Bukhari 2916; research file v1, part 4).
And what he ﷺ fears for his people, in his last illness, is precisely what the objection accuses him of: “It is not that you will associate others with God after me that I fear, but that you will vie with one another for [the goods of this world]” (Bukhari 1344; Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 247-248).
What the objection gets right
He did hold power. In Medina he leads the community, and the pact reported by Ibn Ishaq refers disputes to God and to Muhammad ﷺ (Ibn Hisham, I, 504); he leads armies and enters Mecca as a victor (Ibn Hisham, II, 400; Bukhari 4276). The site does not hide it, and the Qur’an does not present it as a fault: permission to fight is given to those who were “driven from their homes without right” (22:40).
But power came after the refusal of power, at the end of thirteen years of preaching in Mecca, according to the view Ibn Kathir holds to be the soundest, under persecution (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, II, 290; Bukhari 3903), and he ﷺ drew no fortune from it. An ambition is judged at the moment when one can have power by giving up the rest: on that day, in Mecca, he refused.
Further reading
- The offers of Quraysh, the boycott and Ta’if: The preaching in Mecca and the opposition.
- The forced departure and the mosque of Medina: Aqaba and the Hijra; Medina: the community and the pact.
- The last illness and death: The Farewell Pilgrimage and his death.
- The signs drawn from his person ﷺ: The testimony of his person.
- All the objections: Objections answered.
Sources for this page
- Qur’an: Tanzil text (Uthmani); translation of the meaning by this site.
- The shepherd: Bukhari 2262.
- Ta’if: Bukhari 3231.
- The mosque of Medina: Bukhari 3906.
- The conquest of Mecca: Bukhari 4276.
- Thirteen years in Mecca: Bukhari 3903.
- The armour pledged: Bukhari 2916.
- Vying for the goods of this world: Bukhari 1344.
- “Had I not been driven out of you”: Tirmidhi 3925.
- Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. al-Saqqa, al-Abyari and Shalabi, al-Babi al-Halabi, Cairo, 2nd ed., 1955, I, 158, 168, 293, 295-296, 318, 353, 425, 504; II, 400, 559.
- Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, Uyun al-athar, Dar al-Qalam, Beirut, 1993, I, 147.
- Ibn Kathir, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. Mustafa Abd al-Wahid, Dar al-Ma’rifa, Beirut, 1976, I, 501-502; II, 290.
- Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat al-Nabi ﷺ (extract from al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya), ed. al-Sayyid Ibrahim Amin Muhammad, al-Maktaba al-Tawfiqiyya, Cairo, I, 247-248.
- Al-Salihi al-Shami, Subul al-huda wa-l-rashad, ed. Adil Abd al-Mawjud and Ali Mu’awwad, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, Beirut, 1993, II, 335.
- Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Fath al-Bari sharh Sahih al-Bukhari, Dar al-Ma’rifa, Beirut, 1379 AH, VII, 246.
- Research file “Annonces du Prophète ﷺ”, v1.0, 14 October 2026, part 4.