The Pact of the Four Hunafa'

Ibn Hisham tells a story from the years before the Prophet ﷺ began his mission. The Quraysh held a great festival outside Makkah, where they honored their idols and walked in circles (tawaf) around them. The whole city went out to the festival, but four men stayed behind. They found that they all believed the same thing. Their people had left the pure religion of the prophet Ibrahim AS, and they asked why they should circle a stone "that can neither benefit us nor harm us." They agreed to search for al-hanifiyah, the original religion of Ibrahim AS. Then each of them left Makkah and went his own way to look for the truth.

The first of the four was Waraqa ibn Nawfal ibn Asad, an older cousin of Khadija bint Khuwaylid RA. The second was Ubaydillah ibn Jahsh, a cousin of the Prophet ﷺ whose mother was a daughter of Abd al-Muttalib. The third was Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith. The fourth was Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl, a first cousin of Umar ibn al-Khattab RA, though much older than Umar.

Waraqa became a Christian. Many years later, when the first revelation came, he recognized that Muhammad ﷺ was a prophet. He was the first man to believe in Islam, and he died soon afterward. Ubaydillah also became a Christian and later accepted Islam. He emigrated to Abyssinia with his wife Ramla (Umm Habiba) bint Abi Sufyan, but there he left Islam and went back to Christianity. Umm Habiba separated from him, and he died shortly after.

Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith became a Christian and stayed one until he died. He left Makkah for Rome before the Prophet ﷺ was born, or while he was still a small child, and worked there as an interpreter. He never came back, so it is not known whether he ever heard the Prophet ﷺ's message. Zayd ibn Amr alone accepted neither Christianity nor Judaism. He told the rabbis and priests that their religions were not the religion of Ibrahim AS either. He returned to Makkah and told the Quraysh that he was the only man left in the city upon the religion of Ibrahim AS.