The campaigns of slander and the strategies to keep people from hearing the Qur’an brought no real results. Quraysh tried for weeks and months, but when nothing worked, they resolved upon a darker path. They convened a council and decided: Muslims must be physically punished. Each tribal leader would take responsibility for disciplining converts from their own clan. As for slaves who embraced Islam, their masters were instructed to deal with them harshly. Thus began the first organized wave of persecution — a deliberate attempt to break the resolve of believers, especially the poor and vulnerable, through cruelty and humiliation.

Abū Jahl became the spearhead of this campaign. If a man of rank accepted Islam, he would strip him of his status. If he had wealth, Abū Jahl seized it. If he was poor, they subjected him to torture.

When ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān embraced Islam, his uncle wrapped him in a mat of palm fibers, lit a fire beneath it, and smoked him like meat.

Muṣʿab ibn ʿUmayr, once a youth of great elegance and comfort, was cast out of his home by his own mother. She cut him off and left him in hunger, until his body grew frail and covered in sores.

Ṣuhayb the Roman was beaten so severely that his memory and reason began to falter.

Abū Fukayhah, a slave of the Banū ʿAbd al-Dār, was shackled by the feet, stripped naked, dragged across burning rock at midday, and paraded through the desert. When his tormentors thought him dead, they abandoned him. It was Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq who found him, purchased him, and set him free.

Zinnīrah, a Roman slave woman, was scourged until she lost her sight. Quraysh mocked her, saying it was the curse of Lāt and ʿUzzā. But her faith was unshaken. She cried out, “By Allah, never! This is Allah’s decree, and if He wills, He will restore it.” The very next day her vision returned. Even then they refused to accept the truth. They spread the lie that Muhammad’s ﷺ sorcery had healed her.

Umm ʿUbays, a maidservant of Aswad ibn ʿAbd Yaghūth, was tormented for her faith. Aswad, a chief of the Sahrah clan and an open enemy of the Prophet ﷺ, showed her no mercy.

The bondwoman of ʿAmr ibn Muʿammal of Banū ʿAdiyy was beaten by ʿUmar himself — before his Islam — until her body swelled with bruises. He left her saying only, “I have spared you for now,” and walked away.

The mother and daughter al-Nahdiyyah were slaves of Banū ʿAbd al-Dār. They, too, were whipped for embracing Islam.

So was ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah, who was lashed until he nearly lost his senses.

All across Makkah, believers were tested by fire and whip, stripped of dignity, denied food and shelter, and stretched to the limits of endurance. The air of the city itself seemed to crack with the cries of the oppressed.

Yet, amidst this cruelty, there was one man who quietly went about his mission: Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq. Whenever he saw a brother or sister in faith crushed under torment, he stepped in, buying their freedom with his own wealth. Again and again, chains were broken by his hand. His house became a sanctuary for the persecuted, and his wealth a ransom for the oppressed. In those dark days, his deeds stood as a shield for Islam’s earliest community.