the religion in the late Medinan period. List of According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "some of Muḥammad's relatives, contemporaries, and early supporters were called " – examples including Waraqah ibn Nawfal, "a cousin of the Prophet’s first wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid, and Umayyah ibn Abī aṣ-Ṣalt, "an early 7th-century Arab poet". According to the website "In the Name of Allah", the term is used "twelve times in the Quran", but Abraham/Ibrahim is "the only person to have been explicitly identified with the term." He is mentioned "in reference to" eight times in the Quran. Among those who, pre traditional Islamic belief, are thought to be are: All the prophets and messengers after Abraham Old Najranites Seven Sleepers Sa'id bin Zayd Khaled bin Sinan Hashim ibn Abd Manaf Shaybah ibn Hāshim, better known as Abdul Muttalib The four friends in Mecca from ibn Ishaq's account: Zayd ibn Amr: rejected both Judaism and Christianity Waraqah ibn Nawfal: was an Nestorian priest and patrilineal third cousin to Muhammad. He died before Muhammad declared his Prophethood. Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith: travelled to the Byzantine Empire and converted to Christianity Ubayd-Allah ibn Jahsh: early Muslim convert who emigrated to the Kingdom of Aksum and then converted to Christianity. opponents of Islam from Ibn Isḥāq's account: Abū 'Amar 'Abd Amr ibn Sayfī: a leader of the tribe of Banu Aws at Medina and builder of the "Mosque of the Schism" mentioned in the Quranic verse and later allied with the Quraysh then moved to Ta'if and onto Syria after subsequent early Muslim conquests. Abu Qays ibn al-Aslaṭ Historicity According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "there is no evidence that a true cult existed in pre-Islāmic Arabia". A Greek source from the fifth century CE, The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, speaks of how "Abraham had bequeathed a monotheist religion" to Arabs, that the Arabs descended "from Ishmael and Hagar" and followed Jewish practices such as not eating pork. No archaeological evidence has been found to support the idea that Abraham was a real person, and most scholars do not consider the Book of Genesis to be an accurate history. Sozomen was a historian of the Christian Church who is thought to have been a native of Gaza whose native tongue was Arabic and who lived from about 400-450 CE. Thus according to Ibn Rawandi, he provides a "reliable source" that Arabs – at least in northwest Arabia – were