Bird's-eye View of Makkah, the Most Sacred City, as seen from the Jabal Abi-Qubais.
He then went up to the three hundred and sixty idols ranged round the Temple. Beginning with the biggest: Hubal, he pierced its eyes with the hooked stick, saying: 'Truth hath come, error hath vanished; error is perishable!' The idol fell face downwards, shattered in a thousand pieces.
One after the other suffered the same fate, as he passed in front of them. A single effigy remained standing—the idol of the Khuza'a—fashioned out of bronze and enamel. It stood superbly erect on the Temple's terrace-roof. 'Kneel down,' was the order given by the Prophet to Ali. Mohammad mounted on his shoulders. 'Rise!' Ali was unable to do so, despite all his bodily strength. He felt himself crushed by supernatural weight: that of the Prophecy. Seeing this, the Prophet got down, knelt in his turn and said to Ali: 'Climb up on my back to destroy that idol!' Ali, overcome by confusion, refused; but finally obeyed, as Mohammad persisted.
Quoth Ali: "I stood upon the Prophet's shoulders; he drew himself up erect and I felt myself lifted by some unknown force by which I could have risen to heaven had I tried.
"The idol was fixed by iron clamps, but at the words of the Prophet: 'Truth hath come; error hath vanished,' it tottered without the least effort on my part and falling to the ground, crumbled away in dust."
The people, recovered from affright, stole gradually forth from their dwellings and, dumb with stupor, looked on while their impotent idols were being destroyed.... When the last vestige of idolatry had disappeared, the Prophet, turning towards the Ka'bah, proclaimed: 'There is no God but Allah! He hath no associates! He hath kept his word and succoured His Servant and dispersed His enemies!' Mohammad turned to the Makkans: 'O Assembly of the Quraish! how shall I treat you, do ye think?'—'With generosity, O generous brother, son of a generous man!' they replied, devoured by anxiety.—'Begone!' he told them. 'Ye are free!' (According to the laws of war, they were slaves and captives.)
The only exceptions to this magnanimous amnesty were made in the cases of eleven men and six women whose conduct had been inexcusable. He ordered them to be put to death, wherever found. The sentence was immediately carried out, and a few of the condemned were executed, including Huwarith, who brutally ill-treated Fatimah, the Prophet's daughter and Ali's wife, when she went away from Makkah.
In order to establish the new state of affairs firmly, Mohammad proceeded to appoint immediately the two most important functions of Makkah: the custodian of the Ka'bah and that of the Zamzam well.