Amr ibn Jamooh was one of the chieftains of the clan of Banu Salmah in Medin. He was an ardent devotee of the deity Manah. Amr had an image of Manat in his prayer room which had been chiselled out of the choicest wood. He would wrap it with the best of perfumes and took good care of it.

Before the hijra, Muhmmad had appointed Masab ibn Umair to carry out Dawah, which he did excellently. Stirrings of change did not leave even the household of Am’r bin Jamooh. All of his three sons Muawwaz ibn amr, Muaaz ibn amr and Khallad ibn amr entered the fold of Islam. On their initiation, even their mother , Hind the wife of amr, professed the shahadah. But they kept their faith secret lest it hurt their father.

One day Am’r warned Hind of the ‘danger’ Masa’b was posing to the traditional faith of the people of Madinah and asked her to safeguard the sons, totally oblivious of the fact that Islam had swept them off their ancestral religion.

Using the opportunity, Hind advised him to listen to what their second son Nuaaz had to tell them. Muaaz was called out and asked to recite some verses of the Quran. Muaaz then recited the surah Fatihah. The message went straight to the heart of Am’r. But then he wanted to consult Manat about his intention to join the fold of Islam. Despite pleading from his sons that all such pleading before Manat wuld be stonewalled as the self- created deity was neither able to hear, nor to speak, let alone think, he insisted on the way he had chosen for himself.

Next his family members saw him standing before the idol of Manat. Incidentally, Am’r was one-legged, second having been lost in some mishap. He continued to stand pleading for advice from Manat for days together. But as it prolonged, his sons thought it better to remove the idol from his prayer which they thought would dissuade their father. So, one night, under the cover of darkness, they took away the idol of Manat and threw it in a ditch full of filth.

Amr was highly disappointed to see Manat missing the next morning. Enraged, he set out to find it and ultimately found it and restored it to its place after due cleaning. This went on for sometime. His sons would throw it and father would restore it. Finally, he hung a sword with the neck of Manat and advised him to safeguard himself if he can.

See also

Family tree of Amr ibn Jamooh

Sahaba

External links

http://www.islamicvoice.com/june.2003/child.htm