Home > Sira > The sixth year of the prophetic Hijra
Year 6 of the Hijra: the pursuit of Salama ibn al-Akwa’, the campaign of the Banu al-Mustaliq, the affair of Ibn Ubayy, Juwayriya, the lie, and the affair of Ukl and Urayna.
Updated on 07 September 2026 at 11:07 PM
This is the sixth year of the prophetic Hijra. Al-Bayhaqi said: it is said that in Muharram of it occurred the expedition of Muhammad ibn Maslama toward Najd, and they took prisoner therein Thumama ibn Uthal al-Yamami. I say: but in the account of Ibn Ishaq, from Sa’id al-Maqburi, from Abu Hurayra, that he witnessed that, and he only emigrated after Khaybar, so it must be deferred to what follows; and Allah knows best. And this is the year in which occurred at its beginning, upon the authentic account, the campaign against Banu Lihyan.
Ibn Ishaq said: the conquest of the Banu Qurayza was in Dhu l-Qi’da and the first part of Dhu l-Hijja, and the pilgrimage of that year was kept by the polytheists, meaning in the year five as preceded. He said: then the Messenger of Allah stayed in Medina Dhu l-Hijja, al-Muharram, Safar and the two Rabi’s, and went out in Jumada al-Ula at the head of six months from the conquest of Qurayza toward the Banu Lihyan, seeking the perpetrators of ar-Raji’, Khubayb and his companions, and he showed that he intended Syria to catch the people off their guard. Ibn Hisham said: he appointed over Medina Ibn Umm Maktum; and when he reached their abodes they fled before him and fortified themselves on the mountaintops, so he turned to Usfan and met there a gathering of the idolaters and prayed there the prayer of fear.
The mention of this campaign has already come in the year four, where al-Bayhaqi mentions it, and the more apparent is what Ibn Ishaq mentioned: that it was after the Trench; and it is established that he prayed at Usfan on the day of Banu Lihyan. Let it be written here and transferred from there in following the imam of the authors of the campaigns of his time and after, as ash-Shafi’i said: whoever wants the campaigns depends upon Muhammad ibn Ishaq. Ka’b ibn Malik said of the campaign of Banu Lihyan: ’Had the Banu Lihyan but faced off, they would have met a troop in their home at the welling springs; they would have met a torrent whose fear fills the herd before a plain like the fork of Falq; but they were a stray herd tracked through the valleys of mountains without shoulders for charging.’
Ibn Ishaq said: then the Messenger of Allah returned to Medina and stayed there only a few nights until Uyayna ibn Hisn ibn Hudhayfa ibn Badr al-Fazari made a raid with horsemen of Ghatafan upon the grazing flocks of the Prophet at al-Ghaba, where there was a man of the Banu Ghifar with his wife, and they killed the man and carried off the woman upon the she-ass. Asim ibn Umar ibn Qatada, and Abdallah ibn Abi Bakr, and one whom I do not suspect, related to me, from Abdallah ibn Ka’b ibn Malik, each relating part of the hadith of the campaign of Dhi Qarad: that the first to give warning against them was Salama ibn Amr ibn al-Akwa’ al-Aslami, who went out in the morning intending al-Ghaba, wrapped in his bow and arrows, and with him was a lad of Talha ibn Ubaydallah with a horse which he led, until when he climbed the pass of al-Wada’ he looked at some of their horses appearing in the direction of Sal’. Then he cried out: O companions of the morning! Then he went out speeding upon their tracks, and he was like a panther until he caught up with the people, and he began turning them back with arrows, saying whenever he shot: ’Take this, I am the son of al-Akwa’; today is the day of the teat.’ When the horses were turned toward him he would run, then face them, and when shooting was possible he shot, then said: ’Take this, I am the son of al-Akwa’; today is the day of the teat.’ One of them would say: this is what you deserve, he is at the start of the day.
And the cry of the son of al-Akwa’ reached the Messenger of Allah, and he cried in Medina: alarm! Alarm! The horses raced toward the Messenger of Allah, and the first of the horsemen to reach him was al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad, then Abbad ibn Bishr, and Sa’d ibn Zayd, and Usayd ibn Dhuhayr, who is doubted, and Uqqa sha ibn Mihsan, and Muh riz ibn Nadla, brother of the Banu Asad ibn Khuzayma, and Abu Qatada al-Harith ibn Ribi’y, brother of the Banu Salama, and Abu Ayyash Ubayd ibn Zayd ibn Samit, brother of the Banu Zurayq. When they gathered to the Messenger of Allah he appointed Sa’d ibn Zayd over them, then said: go out in pursuit of the people until I catch up with you among the people. The Prophet had said to Abu Ayyash, as has reached me from men of the Banu Zurayq: O Abu Ayyash, if you gave this horse to a man more skilled than you, he would catch the people. Abu Ayyash said: O Messenger of Allah, I am the most skilled of the people. Then he struck the horse, and by Allah it ran with him not fifty cubits before throwing him, and he marveled at that; and men of the Banu Zurayq claimed that the Messenger of Allah gave the horse of Abu Ayyash to Mu’adh ibn Ma’is, or A’idh ibn Ma’is ibn Qays ibn Khalda, who was the eighth. Some people count Salama ibn al-Akwa’ as the eighth and exclude Usayd ibn Dhuhayr; and Allah knows best which it was. Salama ibn al-Akwa’ was not that day a horseman, though he was the first to catch the people on foot. The horsemen went out,
chasing one another; Asim ibn Umar ibn Qatada related to me that the first horseman to catch the people was Muh riz ibn Nadla, called al-Akhram, and it is said Qumayr, and the horse under him belonged to Mahmud ibn Maslama, and the horse was called Dhu l-Limma. When he reached the enemy he said to them: halt, O people of the Banu Laki’a, until there join you from behind you the Muhajirun and the Ansar. A man of them charged him and killed him, and the horse wheeled and none could master it until it stood at its tether, meaning it returned to its stable which was in Medina. None of the Muslims was slain that day but him, though Ibn Hisham said more than one man of knowledge mentioned that there was killed with him also Waqqas ibn Mujazziz al-Mudliji. Ibn Ishaq said: one whom I do not suspect related to me, from Abdallah ibn Ka’b ibn Malik, that Muh riz was upon a horse of Uqqa sha ibn Mihsan called al-Janah, and Muh riz was killed and al-Janah seized; and Allah knows best. When the horses had caught up, Abu Qatada killed Habib ibn Uyayna and covered him with his cloak, then joined the people, and the Messenger of Allah came forward with the Muslims, Ibn Hisham saying he had appointed over Medina Ibn Umm Maktum, and there was Habib wrapped in the cloak of Abu Qatada, and the people made the call of return and said: Abu Qatada has been killed. The Messenger of Allah said: ’It is not Abu Qatada; it is a slain man of Abu Qatada’s,
and he has placed upon him his cloak that you may know he is his man.’ Uqqa sha ibn Mihsan caught Awbar and his son Amr ibn Awbar upon one camel, and transfixed them both with the lance, killing them together, and they rescued part of the she-ass. The Messenger of Allah marched until he alighted at the mountain of Dhi Qarad, and the people caught up with him, and he stayed there a day and a night. Salama ibn al-Akwa’ said to him: O Messenger of Allah, if you gave me command of a hundred men I would rescue the rest of the herd and seize the necks of the people. The Messenger of Allah said, as has reached me: they are at this moment deep in Ghatafan. The Messenger of Allah divided among his companions for each hundred men a slaughter beast, and they stayed there, then returned in caravan until they reached Medina. And the wife of the Ghifari came upon a she-camel of the Prophet’s camels until she arrived in Medina and told him the news; and when she finished she said: O Messenger of Allah, I have vowed to Allah to slaughter it if Allah grants me victory over it by it. The Messenger of Allah smiled and said: ’What an ill reward you give it, that Allah mounted you upon it and delivered you by it, and you slaughter it! There is no vow in disobedience of Allah, nor in what you do not possess; it is but a she-camel of my camels. Return to your family with the blessing of Allah.’ Ibn Ishaq said: the hadith of that is from Abu az-Zubayr al-Makki, from al-Hasan al-Basri; thus Ibn Ishaq reports this story with the chain and account he mentioned.
Al-Bukhari said, after the story of al-Hudaybiyya and before Khaybar: the campaign of Dhi Qarad, which is the campaign in which they raided the grazing flocks of the Prophet three days before Khaybar. Qutayba ibn Said narrated to us: Hatim narrated to us, from Yazid ibn Abi Ubayd: I heard Salama ibn al-Akwa’ say: I went out before the first call to prayer, and the grazing flocks of the Prophet pastured at Dhi Qarad. A lad of Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awf met me and said: the grazing flocks of the Prophet have been taken. I said: who took them? He said: Ghatafan. I cried three cries: O companions of the morning! I was heard from between the two Harras of Medina, then I rushed on my face until I caught them already drawing water, and I began shooting them with my arrows, being an archer, and saying: I am the son of al-Akwa’, today is the day of the teat; and I declaimed until I rescued the flocks from them and took from them thirty cloaks. The Prophet came with the people and I said: O Messenger of Allah, I have kept the water from the people and they are thirsty; send to them at once. He said: ’O son of al-Akwa’, you have mastered it; so let them be.’ Then we returned, and the Messenger of Allah rode me behind him upon his she-camel until we reached Medina. Muslim reported it likewise from Qutayba, and al-Bukhari reported it from Abu Asim an-Nabil, from Yazid ibn Abi Ubayd, from the freedman of Salama, in like fashion.
The Imam Ahmad said: Hashim ibn al-Qasim narrated to us: Ikrima ibn Ammar narrated to us: Iyas ibn Salama ibn al-Akwa’ related to me from his father: we arrived in Medina in the time of al-Hudaybiyya with the Messenger of Allah, and I went out, I and Rabah the lad of the Prophet, behind the Messenger of Allah, and I went out with a horse of Talha ibn Ubaydallah, intending to lead it with the camels. When it was at evening Abd ar-Rahman ibn Uyayna made a raid upon the camels of the Messenger of Allah, killed their herdsman, and went out driving them, he and men with him on horses. I said: O Rabah, mount this horse and join Talha and tell the Messenger of Allah that a raid has been made upon his herd. I stood upon a mound, turned my face toward Medina and called three times: O companions of the morning!
Then I followed the people with my sword and arrows, shooting and piercing them, and that when the trees grew thick; and whenever a horseman turned to me I sat for him at the root of a tree and shot, and no horseman advanced to me but I pierced him, saying: I am the son of al-Akwa’, and today is the day of the teat. When I was among the trees I burned them with arrows, and when the passes narrowed I climbed the mountain and repelled them with stones; that remained my task and theirs, pursuing and declaiming, until nothing that was behind the Messenger of Allah remained but I placed it behind my back and rescued it from their hands. I kept shooting them until they cast more than thirty lances and more than thirty cloaks they discarded, and nothing of that did they cast but I put a stone upon it,
piling it upon the road of the Messenger of Allah. When the forenoon lengthened Uyayna ibn Badr al-Fazari came to them in reinforcement while they were in a narrow pass, and I climbed the mountain so that I was above them. Uyayna said: what is this I see? They said: we met this spearman who has not left us since dawn until now, taking everything in our hands and putting it behind his back. Uyayna said: were it not that this one sees there is a pursuit behind him he would have left you; let a group of you rise against him. Four of them rose and climbed the mountain, and when I let them hear my voice I said: do you recognize me? They said: and who are you? I said: I am the son of al-Akwa’; by Him who honored the face of Muhammad, no man of you will seek me and catch me, nor seek I him and miss him. A man of them said:
I think it is he. I kept my seat until I saw the horsemen of the Messenger of Allah threading the trees, their first being al-Akhram al-Asadi, behind him Abu Qatada, the horseman of the Messenger of Allah, and behind Abu Qatada al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad al-Kindi. The idolaters turned in flight, and I descended the mountain and took the reins of his horse and said: O Akhram, warn the people, meaning beware of them, for I cannot be sure they will not cut you off; wait until the Messenger of Allah and his companions come. He said: O Salama, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day and know that Paradise is true and the Fire true, do not stand between me and martyrdom. So I slackened the reins of his horse, and he joined Abd ar-Rahman ibn Uyayna, and Abd ar-Rahman wheeled upon him; they exchanged two thrusts,
al-Akhram speared Abd ar-Rahman and Abd ar-Rahman struck him and killed him, and Abd ar-Rahman passed to the horse of al-Akhram. Abu Qatada joined Abd ar-Rahman; they exchanged two thrusts, he speared Abu Qatada, and Abu Qatada killed him, and Abu Qatada passed to the horse of al-Akhram. Then I went out racing after the people until I saw nothing of the dust of the companions of the Prophet, and they turned before sundown to a valley in which was water called Dhi Qarad, wanting to drink from it; they saw me at their heels, so they turned from it and sped through the pass of Dhi Bi’r, and the sun set. I caught a man and shot him, saying: ’Take this, I am the son of al-Akwa’, and today is the day of the teat,’ and he said: perdition to the mother of Akwa’’s son, this is morning! I said: yes,
O enemy of your own soul. The one I shot was Bukra, and I followed him with another arrow, two arrows sticking in him, and they left behind two horses; I brought them, driving them to the Messenger of Allah, who was at the water I had driven them from, Dhi Qarad, and the Prophet of Allah was with five hundred, and Bilal had slaughtered a beast of those I left and was roasting for the Messenger of Allah of its liver and hump. I came to the Messenger of Allah and said: O Messenger of Allah, let me choose a hundred of your companions and I shall fall upon the disbelievers at nightfall, and none of them will remain an informant but I kill him. He said: ’Would you have done that, O Salama?’ I said: yes, by Him who honored you. The Messenger of Allah laughed until I saw his molars in the light of the fire,
then said: ’they are just now grazing in the land of Ghatafan.’ A man of Ghatafan came and said: pass by so-and-so the Ghatafani, who will slaughter for them a beast; and as they began flaying its skin they saw a dust, left it and went out in rout. When morning came the Messenger of Allah said: ’The best of our horsemen today is Abu Qatada, and the best of our footmen Salama.’ The Messenger of Allah gave me the share of the horseman and the footman both, then rode me behind him upon the racing she-camel returning to Medina. When we were near a morning’s journey from it, among the people was an Ansari who was never outrun, and he kept calling: is there a rival? Will no man race me to Medina? He repeated that many times while I was behind the Messenger of Allah riding behind him. I said to him: do you not honor a noble, nor fear an honorable one? He said: no, save the Messenger of Allah. I said: O Messenger of Allah, may my father and mother be your ransom, let me race the man. He said: if you wish. I said: go, I am ahead of you. He leapt from his mount, I flexed my two legs and leapt from the she-camel, and I gave it a stride or two, meaning I gained a breath of my own, then I ran until I caught him and struck him between the shoulders with my hand, saying: I have outrun you by Allah, or words like that. He laughed and said: I think so. Until we entered Medina. Thus Muslim reported it by routes, from Ikrima ibn Ammar, in like manner, having with him: ’I outrun him to Medina, and we stayed not but three days until we went out to Khaybar’; and Ahmad has this account.
Al-Bukhari and al-Bayhaqi mentioned this campaign after al-Hudaybiyya and before Khaybar, and that is more apparent than what Ibn Ishaq mentioned, and Allah knows best; so it should be deferred to the beginning of the seventh year of the Hijra, for Khaybar was in Safar of it. As for the story of the woman who escaped upon the Prophet’s she-camel and vowed to slaughter it for her deliverance upon it, Ibn Ishaq reported it in his version, from Abu az-Zubayr, from al-Hasan al-Basri, mursal; and it has come connected by other routes. The Imam Ahmad said: Affan narrated to us: Hammad ibn Zayd narrated to us: Ayyub narrated to us, from Abu Qilaba, from Abu l-Muhallab, from Imran ibn Husayn: the racing she-camel belonged to a man of the Banu Aqil, and she was among the swiftest of the pilgrims’, and the man was taken captive, and the racing camel taken with him. The Messenger of Allah passed by him while he was in chains, the Messenger of Allah riding a donkey covered with velvet, and he said: O Muhammad, why do you take me, and take the swiftest of the pilgrims? The Messenger of Allah said: ’We take you for the crime of your allies, Thaqif’, and Thaqif had taken captive two of the companions of the Prophet. He said in what he said: and indeed I am a Muslim. The Messenger of Allah said: ’Had you said it while you owned your affair,
you would have attained every success.’ The Messenger of Allah went on, and he said: O Muhammad, I am hungry, so feed me, and I am thirsty, so give me drink. The Messenger of Allah said: ’that is your need.’ Then he was ransomed for the two men, and the Messenger of Allah kept the racing camel for his mount. Then the idolaters raided the herd of Medina and took it, and the racing camel was among it, and they took captive a Muslim woman; and when they alighted they watered their camels at their waterskins. The woman rose one night after they had been lulled to sleep and kept going from camel to camel bellowing them, until she came upon the racing camel, and she came upon a gentle camel of coarse hump and mounted it, then turned it toward Medina; and she vowed that if Allah saved her upon it she would surely slaughter it. When she arrived in Medina the she-camel was recognized and it was said: the she-camel of the Messenger of Allah; and the Messenger of Allah was informed of her vow, or she came to him and told him, and he said: ’What an ill reward she gives it’, or ’what an ill repayment of it, that Allah saved her upon it and she would slaughter it’. Then the Messenger of Allah said: ’There is no fulfillment of a vow in disobedience of Allah, nor in what the son of Adam does not possess.’ Muslim reported it, from Abu ar-Rabi’ az-Zahrani, from Hammad ibn Zayd, likewise.
Ibn Ishaq said: of what was said as poetry in the campaign of Dhi Qarad is the word of Hassan ibn Thabit: ’Were it not what she met and her eagle touched in the south of yesterday’s shade as guide, we would have met you bearing every armored one, guardian of the truth, proud of grandfathers. And glad be the sons of Laqita that we are at peace the morning of the war of al-Miqdad. We were eight and they were a massed throng, and they confused with spears in disorder. We were of the people who bound them and advanced the rein of every steed. No, by the Lord of the dancers to Mina, they would cut across the locks of the columns, until we made the horses stumble in your parade grounds and returned with the queens and children in calm. Relaxed with every saddle and every hood, in every battlefield we turned and valley,
wearing out the hind legs and raising the palisades, a day driven by it and a day of banishment. So are our steeds shod and war kindled by the wind of a coquette, and our swords are white of iron unveiling the armors of iron and the crest of the apostate. God took oath upon them by His sanctity and by the might of the Merciful, with surest aid. They were in a home of ease, then were changed: the days of Dhi Qarad, faces of defiance.’ Ibn Ishaq said: Sa’d ibn Zayd, commander of the vanguard horsemen before the Messenger of Allah, was angry with Hassan and swore never to speak with him, and said: I go to my horses and my horsemen and give them to al-Miqdad. Hassan excused himself to him that the transmitter made the name of al-Miqdad coincide, then recited verses praising Sa’d ibn Zayd:
’If you desire the hardest of whip-hands, or one of plunder, then yours is Sa’d; Sa’d ibn Zayd, whom no overthrow overthrows.’ It did not strike him at all. Hassan ibn Thabit said on the day of Dhi Qarad: ’Does Uyayna think, when he visited her, that he would demolish palaces therein? You were belied, you who would have confirmed him, and you said: we shall plunder a great matter. You feared for Medina when you visited her, and sensed for the lion in her a roar; and they turned fleeing like the ostrich, and uncovered not a woven mat. A prince over us, the messenger of the King: love for us the prince dearest by that: a messenger we believe what came to him, and who recites a shining, luminous Book.’ Ka’b ibn Malik said on the day of Dhi Qarad, praising the horsemen of the Muslims that day:
’Do the sons of Laqita reckon that we, upon horses, are not like them among the horsemen? We are a people who see no slaying as disgrace, nor bend at the charging spears. We quarter the guest from the lair of the grain, and strike the head of the pale one nosing about. We turn back the marked companies when they choose, with a blow that calms the pride of the stooping one, at every youth guarding the truth, proud, generous as a herd of grazing does in velvet, defending their kin and their offspring with whites that guide the peaks beneath the helmets. So ask the sons of Badr when you meet them what the brothers did on the day of ambush. When you go out, be true to whom you meet, and hide not your reports in the assemblies, and say: we slipped from the talons of a heron, by whom a burn in the breast that brooks no dispute.’
Al-Bukhari said: it is the campaign of al-Muraysi’. Muhammad ibn Ishaq said: that was in the year six, and Musa ibn Uqba said: the year four; and an-Nu’man ibn Rashid said, from az-Zuhri: the story of the lie was in the campaign of al-Muraysi’. Thus al-Bukhari relates, from the campaigns of Musa ibn Uqba, that it was in the year four; and what al-Bayhaqi relates of him and of Urwa is that it was in Sha’ban of the year five. Al-Waqidi said: it was two nights into Sha’ban of the year five, with seven hundred of his companions. Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar said, after reporting the story of Dhi Qarad: the Messenger of Allah stayed in Medina part of Jumada al-Akhira and Rajab, then made war upon the Banu al-Mustaliq of Khuza’a in Sha’ban of the year six. Ibn Hisham said: he appointed over Medina Abu Dhar al-Ghifari, though it is said Numayla ibn Abdallah al-Laythi. Ibn Ishaq said: Asim ibn Umar ibn Qatada, and Abdallah ibn Abi Bakr, and Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Hibban related to me,
each relating part of the hadith of the Banu al-Mustaliq. They said: it reached the Messenger of Allah that the Banu al-Mustaliq were gathering against him, their leader being al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar, father of Juwayriya bint al-Harith whom the Messenger of Allah married after this; and when he heard of them he went out toward them until he met them at one of their waters called al-Muraysi’, from the direction of Qudayd toward the coast. The people jostled and fought, and Allah routed the Banu al-Mustaliq, killing those He killed of them, and the Messenger of Allah distributed their sons and their women and their wealth, and they fell as spoils upon him. Al-Waqidi said: the Messenger of Allah went out two nights into Sha’ban of the year five of the Hijra, with seven hundred of his companions, toward the Banu al-Mustaliq, who were allies of the Banu Mudlij. When he reached them he gave the banner of the Muhajirun to Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, though it is said to Ammar ibn Yasir,
and the banner of the Ansar to Sa’d ibn Ubada; then he commanded Umar ibn al-Khattab, who proclaimed among the people: say ’there is no deity but Allah’; shield thereby yourselves and your wealth. They refused, so they exchanged arrows; then the Messenger of Allah commanded the Muslims, and they charged with the charge of one man, and not one man of them escaped, and ten of them were killed, and the rest of them taken captive, and of the Muslims only one man was slain. It is established in the two Sahihs, from Abdallah ibn Awn, who said: I wrote to Nafi’ asking him about the supplication before fighting, and he said: the Messenger of Allah raided the Banu al-Mustaliq while they were heedless and their flocks drinking at the water, and he killed their fighters and captured their captives, and there fell that day, I think he said, Juwayriya bint al-Harith; and Abdallah ibn Umar informed me of that, and he was in that army. Ibn Ishaq said: there was slain that day a man of the Muslims called Hisham ibn Subaba,
whom a man of the Ansar reached, thinking him of the enemy, and killed by mistake. Ibn Ishaq mentioned that his brother Miqyas ibn Subaba came from Mecca showing Islam and demanded the blood-price of his brother Hisham from the Messenger of Allah, because he had been slain by mistake, and he gave him his blood-price. He stayed a short while, then fell upon his brother’s killer by night and killed him, and returned an apostate to Mecca, declaiming thereupon: ’The soul is healed that I lay in the plain reclining, the weave of my two robes streaked with the bloods of skulls; and the soul’s sorrows before his slaying heaped and kept me from the resting of couches. I avenged my night and attained my vengeance, and I was to the idols the first to return. I avenged for Fihr and loaded the mind of the inmost Banu an-Najjar, lords of Fari’.’ I say: for this reason this Miqyas was among the four whose blood the Messenger of Allah declared forfeit on the day of the conquest were they found hanging to the cords of the Kaaba.
Ibn Ishaq said: while the people were at that water and the incoming wave of the people arrived, there was with Umar ibn al-Khattab a hired man of his of the Banu Ghifar called Jahjah ibn Mas’ud, leading his horse, and Jahjah and Sinan ibn Wabar al-Juhani, ally of the Banu Awf ibn al-Khazraj, jostled over the water and fought, and the Juhani cried: O assembly of the Ansar! And Jahjah cried: O assembly of the Muhajirun! Abdallah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul became angry, with him a group of his people, among them Zayd ibn Arqam, a young lad; and he said: have they done it? They have outdone us and multiplied themselves in our land, and by Allah I reckon these cloaks of Quraysh to be nothing but what the first said: feed your dog and it will eat you. By Allah, if we returned to Medina the mightiest of it would surely drive out the most abased.
Then he addressed those of his people present and said: this is what you have done with yourselves: you made them lawful in your land and divided your wealth with them; by Allah, had you held back from them, they would not have been in your hands, but would have moved to a home other than yours. Zayd ibn Arqam heard that and went with it to the Messenger of Allah, that being as the Messenger of Allah finished with his enemy, and told him the news, with him Umar ibn al-Khattab, who said: command Abbad ibn Bishr to kill him. The Messenger of Allah said: ’And how would it be, O Umar, if the people were to say that Muhammad kills his companions? No; rather order the departure.’ That was at an hour when the Messenger of Allah did not usually travel, and the people traveled,
and Abdallah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul walked to the Messenger of Allah when it reached him that Zayd ibn Arqam had conveyed to him what he heard from him, and he swore by Allah: I said not what he said, nor spoke it. He was in his people greatly honored, and those of the Ansar of his companions present with the Messenger of Allah said: O Messenger of Allah, perhaps the lad erred in his account and did not retain what the man said, inclining toward Ibn Ubayy and defending him. When the Messenger of Allah set out and marched, Usayd ibn Hudayr met him, greeted him with the greeting of prophethood, and said: O Messenger of Allah, by Allah you traveled at an unseemly hour at which you never used to travel. The Messenger of Allah said: ’and has it not reached you what your companion said?’ He said: what companion, O Messenger of Allah? He said:
’Abdallah ibn Ubayy.’ He said: and what did he say? He said: ’he claims that if he returned to Medina the mightiest of it would drive out the most abased.’ He said: you, by Allah, O Messenger of Allah, will drive him out if you will; he, by Allah, is the abased and you the mighty. Then he said: O Messenger of Allah, be gentle with him, for by Allah Allah brought us you, and his people are stringing the collar to crown him, and he sees you have seized from him the kingdom. Then the Messenger of Allah marched with the people that their day until evening, and their night until morning, and the first of their day until the sun hurt them, then he alighted with the people; they had scarcely felt the touch of the ground before they fell asleep, and he did that to busy the people from the discourse of yesterday, the words of Abdallah ibn Ubayy.
Then the Messenger of Allah went with the people and took the Hijaz road until he alighted at a water in the Hijaz above an-Naqi’ called Baqa’; and when the Messenger of Allah set out a violent wind blew upon the people and hurt them and they feared it, and the Messenger of Allah said: ’do not fear it; it has blown for the death of a great one among the great of the disbelievers.’ When they arrived in Medina they found Rifa’a ibn Zayd ibn at-Tabut, one of the Banu Qaynuqa’, who was great among the great of the Jews and a refuge for the hypocrites, dead that day, as Musa ibn Uqba and al-Waqidi mention. Muslim reported, through al-A’mach, from Abu Sufyan, from Jabir, an account like this except that he did not name the one who died of the hypocrites, and said: a violent wind blew while the Prophet was in one of his journeys, and he said:
’this is for the death of a hypocrite’; and when we arrived in Medina there was dead a great one among the great of the hypocrites. Ibn Ishaq said: and descended the sura in which Allah mentions the hypocrites, concerning Ibn Ubayy and whoever was upon his like, and the Messenger of Allah took the ear of Zayd ibn Arqam and said: this is he who fulfilled to Allah his ear. We have discussed its tafsir in full in our book of Tafsir, with what suffices against repeating it here, and we have strung the routes of this hadith from Zayd ibn Arqam, and to Allah belong praise and favor; whoever wishes to stand upon it or loves to write it here, let him seek it from there, and success is by Allah. Ibn Ishaq said: Asim ibn Umar ibn Qatada related to me that Abdallah the son of Abdallah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul came to the Messenger of Allah and said: O Messenger of Allah,
it has reached me that you intend to kill Abdallah ibn Ubayy for what reached you of him; if you will do so, command me, and I shall carry you his head, for by Allah the Khazraj know no man was more dutiful to his father than I, and I fear you will command other than me and he kill him, and I would not suffer to look upon the killer of Abdallah ibn Ubayy walking among the people, and kill him, and slay a believer for a disbeliever and enter the Fire. The Messenger of Allah said: rather we shall be gentle with him and good companions as long as he remains with us; and thereafter, whenever an event occurred, his own people were the ones who rebuked him and took him and rough-handled him. The Messenger of Allah said to Umar ibn al-Khattab when that reached him of their state: ’What do you see, O Umar? By Allah, had I killed him the day you said to me: kill him,
the eyes of the Banu Awf would have thundered; and were I to command them his killing today they would kill him.’ Umar said: by Allah I knew the command of the Messenger of Allah was greater in blessing than my command. Ikrima and Ibn Zayd mentioned that his son Abdallah stopped his father Abdallah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul at the narrow entrance of Medina and said: halt; by Allah you shall not enter it until the Messenger of Allah permits that; and when the Messenger of Allah came he asked his leave for that and permitted him, and let him go until he entered Medina. Ibn Ishaq said: there were slain that day of the Banu al-Mustaliq people, and Ali ibn Abi Talib killed two of them, Malik and his son; Ibn Hisham said: the war cry of the Muslims was: O you aided, slay, slay. Ibn Ishaq said: the Messenger of Allah had taken many captives of them and divided them among the Muslims.
Al-Bukhari said: Qutayba ibn Said narrated to us: Isma’il ibn Ja’far informed me, from Rabi’a ibn Abi Abd ar-Rahman, from Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Hibban, from Ibn Muhayriz, who said: I entered the mosque and saw Abu Sa’id al-Khudri and sat beside him and asked him about withdrawal, and Abu Sa’id said: we went out with the Messenger of Allah on the campaign of the Banu al-Mustaliq and took captives of the Arabs’ captives, and desired the women, and celibacy became hard upon us, and we loved withdrawal and said: shall we withdraw while the Messenger of Allah is among us, before asking him? So we asked him about that and he said: ’nothing upon you that you do not do it; there is no soul that shall be created until the Day of Resurrection but it shall be created.’ Muslim reported it likewise. Ibn Ishaq said: among those taken of the captives that day was Juwayriya bint al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar, and Muhammad ibn Ja’far ibn az-Zubayr related to me, from Urwa, from Aisha, who said: when the Messenger of Allah divided the captives of the Banu al-Mustaliq, Juwayriya bint al-Harith fell to the lot of Thabit ibn Qays ibn Shamm’as, or a cousin of his, and she made a ransom pact with him for herself, and she was a sweet and comely woman whom none saw but he was captivated. She came to the Messenger of Allah to seek his help in her ransom pact. She said:
by Allah, I had only seen her at the door of my cell and disliked her, and knew he would see of her what I saw. She entered upon him and said: O Messenger of Allah, I am Juwayriya bint al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar, chief of his people, and I have been struck by a calamity you know not hidden from you; I fell to the lot of Thabit ibn Qays ibn Shamm’as, or a cousin of his, and made a ransom pact with him for myself, and I come to you seeking your help against my pact. He said: ’have you better than that?’ She said: and what is it, O Messenger of Allah? He said: ’I discharge your pact for you and marry you.’ She said: yes, O Messenger of Allah. He said: ’it is done.’ She said: the news went out among the people that the Messenger of Allah had married Juwayriya bint al-Harith, and the people said: we are the in-laws of the Messenger of Allah, and they sent forth what was in their hands, releasing them. She said: by his marrying her a hundred households of the Banu al-Mustaliq were freed, and I know no woman who was a greater blessing upon her people than she. Then Ibn Ishaq mentioned the story of the lie in full in this campaign, and so did al-Bukhari and more than one of the people of knowledge, and I have established all its routes in the tafsir of the chapter of Light; so let it be annexed in full to here, and the help sought is from Allah.
Al-Waqidi said: Haram narrated to us, from Hisham ibn Urwa, from his father, that Juwayriya bint al-Harith said: three nights before the Prophet came I saw as it were the moon traveling from Yathrib until it fell into my lap, and I disliked to tell anyone of the people until the Messenger of Allah came; and when we were captured I hoped in the dream. She said: the Messenger of Allah freed me and married me, and by Allah I never spoke to him about my people until the Muslims were the ones who released them, and I only sensed a maidservant of my cousins informing me the news, and I praised Allah the Most High. Al-Waqidi said: it is said the Messenger of Allah made her dowry the freeing of every captive of the Banu al-Mustaliq; and it is said he made her dowry the freeing of forty of the Banu al-Mustaliq; and Musa ibn Uqba mentioned that the Banu al-Mustaliq’s, her father sought her and ransomed her, then the Messenger of Allah asked her of him and he married her to him.
This is the chapter on the mention of the expeditions and the missions that occurred in the year six of the Hijra, and the summary of that is what the hafiz al-Bayhaqi reported from al-Waqidi: in Rabi’ al-Awwal of it or the last, the Messenger of Allah sent Uqqa sha ibn Mihsan with forty men to Ghumr Marzuq, a water of the Banu Asad, and they fled from him, and he alighted at their water and sent in their tracks and took from them two hundred camels and drove them to Medina. And in it was the sending of Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah to Dhu l-Qassa with forty men as well; they marched their night on foot until they reached it in the blindness of dawn, and they fled from him to the mountaintops, and he took from them one man and came with him to the Messenger of Allah and he accepted Islam. And the sending of Muhammad ibn Maslama with ten men: the people lay in ambush for them until they slept, and the companions of Muhammad ibn Maslama were all killed, and he alone escaped,
wounded. And in it was the sending of Zayd ibn Haritha to al-Humum, and he took a woman of Muzayna called Halima, who guided them to a settlement of the settlements of the Banu Sulaym, and they took from it livestock, sheep and captives, and among them was the husband of this Halima, and the Messenger of Allah gifted the woman to her husband and released them both. And in it was the sending of Zayd ibn Haritha also, in Jumada al-Ula, to the Banu Tha’laba with fifteen men, and the Bedouins fled from him, and he took of their livestock twenty camels, then returned after four nights. And in it Zayd ibn Haritha went out in Jumada al-Ula to al-Is. He said: and in it were taken the wealth which was with Abu l-As ibn ar-Rabi’, and he sought the protection of Zaynab bint of the Messenger of Allah and she protected him. Ibn Ishaq mentioned, as preceded, his story when the caravan that was with him was taken and his companions slain and he fled until he came to Medina,
his wife Zaynab bint of the Messenger of Allah having emigrated after Badr; and when he came to Medina he sought her protection and she granted it after the dawn prayer, and the Messenger of Allah granted it to her, and commanded the people to return what they had taken of his caravan, and they returned every thing they had taken of him until he lost nothing of it. When he returned with it to Mecca and delivered to her people what he had with him of trusts, he accepted Islam and left Mecca returning to Medina, and the Messenger of Allah restored to him his wife Zaynab by the first marriage without a new marriage or contract, as the exposition of that preceded; and between his Islam and her emigration were six years, though two are reported, and we have shown there is no contradiction between the two reports, for his Islam lagged the time of forbidding the believing women to the disbelievers by two years, and his Islam was in the year eight,
the year of the conquest, not as understood from al-Waqidi’s word that it was in the year six; and Allah knows best. Al-Waqidi mentioned in this year that Dihya ibn Khalifa al-Kalbi came from Caesar with wealth and robes of honor, and when he was at Hisma people of Juzam met him and cut the road on him and left him nothing, and the Messenger of Allah sent Zayd ibn Haritha to them as well. Al-Waqidi said: Abdallah ibn Ja’far related to me, from Ya’qub ibn Utba, who said: Ali, peace be upon him, went out with a hundred men until he alighted at a tribe of the Banu Sa’d ibn Bakr, that being because it reached the Messenger of Allah that they had a gathering intending to reinforce the Jews of Khaybar, so he marched toward them by night and lay hid by day, and took their spy, who affirmed that he had been sent to Khaybar offering them their aid on condition they give them the dates of Khaybar. Al-Waqidi, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
in the year six, in Sha’ban of it, was the expedition of Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awf to Dumat al-Jandal, and the Messenger of Allah said to him: ’if they obey, marry the daughter of their king’; and the people accepted Islam, and Abd ar-Rahman married the daughter of their king, Tumadir bint al-Asbagh al-Kalbiyya, and she is the mother of Abu Salama ibn Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awf. Al-Waqidi said: in Shawwal of the year six was the expedition of Kurz ibn Jabir al-Fihri to the Urayniyyin who killed the herdsman of the Messenger of Allah and drove off the flocks, so the Messenger of Allah sent in their tracks Kurz ibn Jabir with twenty horsemen, and they returned them. And of their affair is what al-Bukhari and Muslim extracted, from Sa’id ibn Abi Aruba, from Qatada, from Anas ibn Malik: that a group of Ukl and Urayna, or in a version of Ukl or Urayna, came to the Messenger of Allah and said: O Messenger of Allah, we are a people of husbandry, and we were not people of the wilds,
and the fever of Medina has seized us. So the Messenger of Allah ordered for them a herd of camels and a herdsman and commanded them to go out with it and drink of its milk and urine; and they went until they were near the Harra and killed the herdsman of the Messenger of Allah and drove off the camels and disbelieved after their Islam. The Prophet sent in their pursuit and commanded them, and cut their hands and their feet and put out their eyes and left them near the Harra until they died in that state. Qatada said: it reached us that the Messenger of Allah, whenever he preached after that, urged charity and forbade mutilation. This hadith was reported by a group from Qatada, and by a group from Anas ibn Malik; and in Muslim’s version, from Mu’awiya ibn Qurra, from Anas: a group of Urayna came to the Messenger of Allah and accepted Islam and pledged him allegiance, and the fever, which is the barsam, had broken out in Medina, and they said:
this sickness has broken out, O Messenger of Allah; if you permit us we shall return to the camels. He said: ’yes, go out and be among them’; and they went out and killed the two herdsmen and took the camels, and he had youths of the Ansar near twenty, and he sent them against them and sent with them a tracker to follow their tracks, and they were brought to him, and he cut their hands and their feet and put out their eyes. In the Sahih of al-Bukhari, through Ayyub, from Abu Qilaba, from Anas, that he said: a group of Ukl came and accepted Islam and found Medina trying, and came to the Messenger of Allah and mentioned that to him, and he said: ’go to the camels and drink of their urine and their milk’. He said: they went and were in it as long as Allah willed, then they killed the herdsman and drove off the camels, and the cry came to the Messenger of Allah, and he sent in their pursuit; the sun had not risen before they were brought to him,
and he ordered nails that were heated and cauterized them with them, and cut their hands and their feet, and cast them in the Harra asking water and not given it until they died, and he did not dispatch them. In a version from Anas he said: I saw one of them biting the earth with his mouth from thirst. Abu Qilaba said: these killed, and stole, and disbelieved after their faith, and warred against Allah and His Messenger. Al-Bayhaqi reported, through Uthman ibn Abi Shayba, from Abd ar-Rahman ibn Sulayman, from Muhammad ibn Ubaydallah, from Abu az-Zubayr, from Jabir, that the Messenger of Allah, when he sent in their tracks, said: ’O Allah, blind their road to them and make it narrower than the gullet of a camel’; and Allah blinded their road and they were caught, and brought to the Messenger of Allah, and he cut their hands and their feet and put out their eyes; and in the Sahih of Muslim: he only put out their eyes because they had put out the eyes of the herdsmen.
This is the chapter of what occurred of events in this year, meaning the year six of the Hijra. In it descended the prescription of the Hajj, as ash-Shafi’i established, at the time of al-Hudaybiyya, in the word of the Most High ’and complete the Hajj and the Umra for Allah’ [al-Baqara: 196]; and for that he inclined to the view that the Hajj is deferred, not immediate, for he performed no Hajj until the year ten, while the three disagreed with him: Malik, Abu Hanifa and Ahmad, holding for them that the Hajj is obligatory upon everyone able upon immediacy, and they forbade that the obligation be derived from the word of the Most High ’and complete the Hajj and the Umra for Allah’, for in this verse is only the command of completing after entering into ihram; and they argued by proofs, many of which we reported at the tafsir of this verse in our book of Tafsir, with what suffices therein; and to Allah belong praise and favor. In this year the Muslim women were forbidden to the polytheists, specifying the generality of what occurred with the treaty of the year of al-Hudaybiyya upon that: none of ours shall come to you, though upon your religion, but you return him to us. So descended the word of the Most High: ’O you who believe, when the believing women come to you as emigrants, examine them; Allah knows best their faith; if you know them to be believers,
return them not to the disbelievers: they are not lawful for them, nor are they lawful for them’ [al-Mumtahina: 1], the verse. And in this year was the campaign of al-Muraysi’, in which was the story of the lie and the descent of the innocence of Aisha the Mother of the Believers, as preceded; and in it was the Umra of al-Hudaybiyya and what occurred of the polytheists’ barring the Messenger of Allah, and how the treaty was concluded between them, putting the war aside between them ten years wherein people would feel safe from one another, and that there should be no treachery nor complicity; and all that has preceded at length in its places, and to Allah belong praise and favor. The pilgrimage of this year was kept by the polytheists. Al-Waqidi said: in it, in Dhu l-Hijja of it, the Messenger of Allah sent six men bearing letters: Hatib ibn Abi Balta’a to al-Muqawqis, lord of Alexandria; Shuja’ ibn Wahb, of the Banu Asad ibn Khuzayma, who witnessed Badr, to al-Harith ibn Abi Shimr al-Ghassani, meaning the king of the Christian Arabs in Syria; Dihya ibn Khalifa al-Kalbi to Caesar, who is Heraclius king of the Romans; Abdallah ibn Hudhayfa as-Sahmi to Khusrau king of the Persians; Salit ibn Amr al-Amiri to Hawza ibn Ali al-Hanafi; and Amr ibn Umayya ad-Damri to the Negus, king of the Christians in Abyssinia, who is Ashama son of Abjar.