The dating of the Trench: Shawwal of year 5

Allah the Most High sent down in it the beginning of the chapter of the Confederates: O you who believe, remember the favor of Allah upon you when hosts came to you and We sent against them a wind and hosts you saw not [al-Ahzab: 9], and the verses to His word: and He made you inherit their land and their homes and their wealth and a land you had not trodden [al-Ahzab: 27]; we have discussed it in the Tafsir, and mention here what touches the story. The campaign of the Trench was in Shawwal of the year five of the Hijra, as stated explicitly by Ibn Ishaq, Urwa ibn az-Zubayr, Qatada, al-Bayhaqi and more than one of the scholars, ancients and later. Musa ibn Uqba reported from az-Zuhri that he said: then was the encounter of the Confederates in Shawwal of the year four; and so said the Imam Malik ibn Anas, as Ahmad ibn Hanbal reported from Musa ibn Dawud,

from him. Al-Bayhaqi said: there is no disagreement between them in reality, for their meaning is that it was after four years had passed and before five was completed; and no doubt the polytheists, when they departed from Uhud, promised the Muslims Badr the coming year, and the Prophet and his companions went as preceded in Sha’ban of the year four, and Abu Sufyan returned with Quraysh for the sterility of that year, so they could not come to Medina but two months after; it follows that the Trench was in Shawwal of the year five, and Allah knows best. Az-Zuhri stated explicitly that the Trench was after Uhud by two years, and there is no dispute that Uhud was in Shawwal of the year three, except upon the view of those who held the beginning of the calendar was Muharram of the year following the year of the Hijra,

not counting the remaining months of the year of the Hijra from Rabi’ al-Awwal to its end, as al-Bayhaqi relates, and Ya’qub ibn Sufyan al-Fasawi held likewise, stating explicitly that Badr was in al-Muharram, Uhud in the year two, Badr al-Maw’ud in Sha’ban of the year three, and the Trench in Shawwal of the year four. This contradicts the view of the majority, for the famous account is that the Commander of the Believers Umar ibn al-Khattab made the beginning of the calendar Muharram of the year of the Hijra, and from Malik, Rabi’ al-Awwal of the year of the Hijra; so the views became three, and Allah knows best. The sound view is that of the majority: that Uhud was in Shawwal of the year three and the Trench in Shawwal of the year five of the Hijra; and Allah knows best. As for the agreed hadith in the two Sahihs, through Ubaydallah, from Nafi’, from Ibn Umar,

that he said: I was presented to the Messenger of Allah on the day of Uhud while I was fourteen years old and he did not permit me, and I was presented on the day of the Trench while I was fifteen and he permitted me: a group of the scholars answered it, among them al-Bayhaqi, that he was presented on the day of Uhud at the beginning of his fourteenth year and on the day of the Confederates at the end of his fifteenth. I say: it is possible he meant that when he was presented on the day of the Confederates he had completed fifteen years, which are permitted for boys like him, and nothing remains upon this to add; and for that, when Nafi’ related this hadith to Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, he said: this is indeed a difference between the young and the grown; then he wrote with it to the horizons, and the majority of the scholars relied upon it; and Allah knows best.