The expeditions and the affair of Ukl and Urayna

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.