The chapter
In one year the Prophet ﷺ lost the two shields of his mission: Khadijah, and his uncle Abu Talib, the Year of Sorrow. With Makkah's protection structure collapsing, he walked to Ta'if with Zayd ibn Harithah to offer Thaqif the message.
Their three chiefs answered with practiced mockery, and worse: they set the city's slaves and street boys on him. He was stoned until blood ran down and clotted in his sandals. Zayd shielded him with his own body and was gashed on the head. They took refuge in an orchard belonging to two Makkans, and there, bleeding, the Prophet raised the complaint the sirah has preserved as the du'a of the crushed: "O Allah, to You I complain of my weakness, my scarcity of resources, and my insignificance before men. O Most Merciful of the merciful… if You are not angry with me, I do not care, but Your protection is more encompassing for me." Not a word asking for revenge; the entire anxiety of the du'a is whether the failure signified his Lord's displeasure.
The answer came in two forms. The first was small and strange: a Christian slave named Addas brought him grapes, heard him say "Bismillah," and discovered the man before him knew of Yunus ibn Matta: "my brother," the Prophet said, "he was a prophet and I am a prophet", and the slave kissed his head while his idolater masters watched in alarm.
The second answer split the sky. On the road home, Jibril appeared with the Angel of the Mountains, who gave the greeting and said: "If you wish, I will bring the two mountains down upon them." The wounded man's reply is, by consensus of the ummah, one of the summits of his character: "Rather, I hope that Allah will bring forth from their loins those who will worship Allah alone, associating nothing with Him." Within a generation, Ta'if was Muslim.
On the way back, at Nakhlah, while he recited in the night prayer, a company of the jinn passed, listened, believed, and returned to their people as warners, heaven quietly noting that when men refuse the message, other audiences are already assembled. He re-entered Makkah only under the protection of Mut'im ibn Adi, a mushrik with honor, a debt the Prophet remembered publicly after Badr. And on the heels of the hardest year came the highest journey.