The start of the year: the campaign against Banu Lihyan

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.’