The three banners and Marhab: who killed him?

Younous ibn Boukayr reports from Ibn Ishaq, from Burayda ibn Soufyan, from his father, from Salama ibn Amr ibn al-Akwa’: the Prophet first sent Abou Bakr toward some of the forts of Khaybar; he fought and returned without conquest, exhausted. He then sent Oumar, who fought and returned without conquest. The Messenger of Allah said: "Tomorrow I shall indeed give the banner to a man loved by Allah and His Messenger, loving Allah and His Messenger, through whose two hands Allah will grant victory, who does not flee." He called Ali, whose eyes were afflicted, spat into his two eyes and said: "Take the banner and march with it until Allah grants you victory." Ali went out with his head bowed, at full speed, and we followed his tracks until he planted his banner in a heap of stones beneath the fort. A Jew looked down from the top of the fort and said: who are you? He said: I am Ali ibn Abi Talib. The Jew said: you have triumphed, and what was revealed to Moussa. He did not return until Allah had granted victory through his two hands.

The Bayhaqi reports through al-Moussayyab ibn Maslama, from Abdallah ibn Bourayda, from his father, a version in which melancholy sometimes kept the Prophet back a day or two without his going out. At Khaybar the melancholy seized him again: Abou Bakr took the banner, fought fiercely and returned; Oumar took it, fought even harder and returned. The Messenger of Allah then said: "Tomorrow I shall give it indeed to a man who loves Allah and His Messenger and is loved by Allah and His Messenger, who will take it by force." Ali was not present, and each of the companions hoped to be that day the master of the honor. In the morning, Ali arrived on his camel, his eye afflicted, having bound it with a strip of qatari cloth. The Messenger of Allah said to him: what is the matter? He said: the ailment came to me after you. He said: come near me. He spat into his eye, which hurt him no more, then gave him the banner. Ali went forth wearing a crimson tunic from which the lining had been drawn out, and came to the city of Khaybar.

Out came Marhab, the master of the fort, wearing a Yemeni helmet and a perforated stone like an egg upon his head, declaiming: "Khaybar knows that I am Marhab, an armed and tried hero: when the lionesses advance, they blaze and recoil before the charge of the dreaded one." Ali answered: "I am he whom my mother named Haydara, a lion of the thickets of terrible aspect: I pay them out by the measure of the sandara cup." They exchanged two blows, then Ali fell upon him with a blow that split the stone, the helmet and the head, which fell between the molars, and he took the town. Al-Bazzar reported this story of Abou Bakr, then Oumar, then Ali, through a chain containing a man accused of shiism: a strange and rejected account. Ibn Bourayda said that his father reported that Ali "was the master of Marhab". Younous said that Ibn Ishaq reported that the first of the forts of Khaybar to be conquered was the fort of Na’im, and that Mahmoud ibn Maslama was killed beside it, slain by a millstone hurled from it.

Mouslim and the Bayhaqi report through Ikrima ibn Ammar, from Iyas ibn Salama, from his father, a version in which Amir ibn al-Akwa’ first advanced upon Marhab: the two poems were exchanged, then Marhab’s sword fell upon Amir’s shield; as he tried to disengage it, he twisted upon himself, and the sword cut through his collarbone, wherein lay his soul. Salama reports that a group was saying: Amir’s deed is annulled, he has killed himself; he wept before the Prophet, who said: "Who said that? They lied: rather a double reward." Then the Prophet sent for Ali, whose eyes were afflicted: "Today I shall indeed give the banner to a man who loves Allah and His Messenger." He spat into his eye, and it healed; he gave him the banner, and Ali, advancing upon Marhab with the poem of Haydara, struck him, split his head and killed him, and thus came the conquest. Imam Ahmad also reports from Ali himself: when I had killed Marhab, I brought his head to the Messenger of Allah.

But Moussa ibn Oqba reports from az-Zouhri that the one who killed Marhab was Mohamed ibn Maslama, and so says Ibn Ishaq, from Abdallah ibn Sahl, from Jabir ibn Abdallah: Marhab the Jew came out of the fort of Khaybar declaiming: "Khaybar knows that I am Marhab, an armed and tried hero: sometimes I strike, sometimes I pursue; when the lionesses advance, they dodge; my fort is not approached." Ka’b ibn Malik answered him: "Khaybar knows that I am Ka’b, the dispeller of grief, of daring body: when war is kindled, war follows it; with me a sword like onyx, keen, it shall trample you until the hard one is humbled; we give the reward or the spoils return, by a cutting hand without flaw." The Messenger of Allah said: who will face this one? Mohamed ibn Maslama said: I, for him, O Messenger of Allah: they killed my brother yesterday.

He said: "Rise against him; O Allah, help him against him." An olive tree stood between the two duellists, and each sheltered behind it while his companion cut away what lay before him, until the tree stood like a bare trunk without foliage. Marhab charged Mohamed ibn Maslama and struck him; he warded it off with his shield, the sword fell into it, bit and was caught; Mohamed struck him until he killed him. The Waqidi adds that Mohamed cut off Marhab’s two legs, and Marhab cried: finish me! He said: no, taste death as Mahmoud ibn Maslama tasted it. Ali passed by him and struck off his head. The companions disputed his spoils before the Messenger of Allah, who gave Mohamed ibn Maslama his sword, his lance, his helmet and his two coats of mail. Written upon that sword was: "This is the sword of Marhab: whoever tastes it groans."

After Marhab, his brother Yasir came out demanding a duellist. Hicham ibn Urwa claims that az-Zoubayr went out against him, and that his mother Safiyya bint Abd al-Muttalib said: he will kill my son, O Messenger of Allah! He said: "Rather your son will kill him, if Allah wills." They met, and az-Zoubayr killed him.

When it was said to him: by Allah, your sword that day was keen, he answered: by Allah, it was not keen, but I pressed it. Younous finally reports from Abou Rafi’, the freedman of the Messenger of Allah: we went out with Ali when the Prophet sent him with his banner. Near the fort, a Jew struck him, knocking his shield from his hand; Ali seized the gate of the fort and shielded himself with it, holding it in his hand while he fought, until Allah had granted victory through him, and then he cast it down. "We were seven, of whom I was the eighth, who tried to turn that gate and could not turn it."

This account contains evident ignorance and discontinuity. The Bayhaqi and al-Hakim report a version through Layth, from Abou Ja’far al-Baqir, from Jabir: Ali carried the gate until the Muslims mounted upon it and opened the fort, and he was afterward tried, and forty men could not carry it. That hadith is weak, and one version gives seventy men.