Quotes About Hanifs

Muhammad had close links with three of the leading hanifs of Mecca. 'Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh was his cousin and Waraqah ibn Nawfal was a cousin of Khadijah: both these men became Christians.

The hanifs had little impact on their contemporaries, because they were chiefly concerned with their own personal salvation. They had no desire to reform the social or moral life of Arabia, and their theology was essentially negative. Instead of creating something new, they simply withdrew from the mainstream. Indeed the word hanif may derive from the root HNF: "to turn away from." They had a clearer idea of what they did not want than a positive conception of where they were going.