The authentic account of Salama: ’you have mastered it, so let them be’

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.