"After preaching Islam in secret and among a small circle for some time, Mohammad ... summoned the Qoraysh chiefs to a meeting on the hill of Safa, and when all were assembled, besought them to embrace Islam. From their midst Abu Lahab stood up and shouted angrily, "Perish you, Mohammad! Did you invite us here for this?" The answer to Abu Lahab's challenge came in verse 1 of sura 111 (ol-Masad), in which the same Arabic word meaning "perish" appears: "Perish Abu Lahab's hands, and may he (himself) perish!" Abu Lahab was proud of his wealth and children. God said, "His wealth will not give him security, nor will the gains that he has made. He will roast in a flaming fire" (verses 2 and 3). Nor would his wife, Omm Jomayyel, who had strewn thorns in the Prophet's path, be left unpunished: "And his wife, the carrier of the firewood sticks, will have a rope of palm fiber on her neck.""