It was twenty years before the mission, in Dhû l-Qa'da, four months after the war of the Fijâr.
The Fijâr and this pact fell in the same year: the Prophet ﷺ was twenty years old.
The cause, in one line: Quraysh used to wrong one another in the Haram.
The biographers tell of one case. A man of Zabîd came to Makkah with merchandise.
Al-'Âs ibn Wâ'il bought it from him, then withheld what he owed him.
The man asked the allied clans for help against him: 'Abd ad-Dâr, Makhzûm, Jumah, Sahm and 'Adî ibn Ka'b.
They refused to help him against al-'Âs ibn Wâ'il, and they rebuked him.
So at sunrise he climbed Abû Qubays, while Quraysh sat in their gatherings around the Ka'ba.
He called out at the top of his voice, in verse.
His lines speak of a man wronged in his goods, in the heart of Makkah, far from his home and his people.
Az-Zubayr ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib stood up over this. He said that this man could not be left abandoned.
Hâshim, Zuhra and Taym ibn Murra gathered in the house of 'Abd Allâh ibn Jud'ân, who prepared a meal for them.
With them, Banû al-Muttalib and Asad ibn 'Abd al-'Uzzâ. The house was chosen for its owner's rank and age.
They swore by Allah to be one hand with the wronged against the wrongdoer, until his right is given back to him.
For how long? As long as a sea wets a tuft of wool, and as long as Thabîr and Hirâ' stand in their place.
The oath covered any wronged person in Makkah: its own people, and anyone who had entered it.
Then they walked to al-'Âs ibn Wâ'il, took the man's merchandise from him and handed it back to its owner.
Quraysh named it Hilf al-Fudûl. They said: these men have entered into a matter of merit (fadl).
Others say the name recalls an older pact of Jurhum, for the same cause, led by men each named Fadl.
Az-Zubayr, named as the first to call for the pact, was a son of 'Abd al-Muttalib, the Prophet's ﷺ grandfather.
And the Prophet ﷺ himself said that he witnessed a pact of Quraysh with his paternal uncles.
Which pact he meant, and what his word about it asks of you: that is chapter 2.
A stranger was cheated in Makkah, and the clans he asked would not help him. So he climbed a mountain and cried out.
What followed is a pact the Prophet ﷺ still spoke of after the revelation.
One man cried out from a mountain. A few clans decided that his loss was their business.
They did not have the revelation. What they swore that day was just all the same.
Tonight, name one person around you who is being wronged with no one on their side, and one thing you can do.