The Year of Uhud

Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf was the son of an Arab of the Banu Nabhan who had fled a killing among his own people and been taken in by the Banu Nadir of Yathrib, and of a Nadiri mother, which in Jewish reckoning made him a Jew. He had an Arab's lineage and a Nadiri's learning, and grew into one of the tribe's leaders, rich enough to own a fortress of his own, famous for his looks and for his poetry. His hostility began early. When the qibla was changed it was he who asked what had turned them from the direction they had prayed to, and the Qur'an answers him. When zakat was commanded he went to his friends among the Ansar and told them not to give their money away, since no one knew what would become of this man; the verse on those who are stingy and urge stinginess on others came down about it. When the criers came into Madinah with the news of Badr he said that if Muhammad ﷺ had really killed those men, the noblest of the Arabs, it were better to be under the earth than on it: a verdict, as it turned out, on himself. Then he went to Makkah with some of the Banu Nadir and made a pact with Abu Sufyan against the Prophet ﷺ, of which no book records the terms; the sources keep only Abu Sufyan's question, whether the Quraysh or Muhammad ﷺ were the better guided, and Ka'b's answer that the Quraysh were, which Surah al-Nisa quotes back at him. He came home believing the alliance secret; Allah had told the Prophet ﷺ of it. He had long written verse against the Muslims, and the last straw was satirical love-poetry about Muslim women, naming them. Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham and al-Waqidi place what follows between Badr and Uhud; Muqatil, al-Baghawi and al-Salihi place it after Uhud and add that Ka'b was the mind behind the Banu Nadir's plot to poison the Prophet ﷺ and died the night before it was to be carried out. The Prophet ﷺ stood and asked who would deal with Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, who had injured Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. Muhammad ibn Maslamah rose. He was of the Aws, who had been the Nadir's allies before Islam and had no old feud with them, so that the killing would not reopen the Jahili quarrel between the Nadir and the Khazraj. For three days he neither ate nor drank, until the Prophet ﷺ was told and came to ask what was wrong: he had promised something he was not sure he could do. Only try, the Prophet ﷺ said; and when Ibn Maslamah asked leave to say things he did not mean, he was told to say what he liked. He went to Ka'b at his hours of business, drew him aside, and complained that this man had brought nothing but trouble on them, set the Arabs against them, and was now asking for their money. Ka'b was delighted and promised worse to come. Ibn Maslamah said that having followed him they could not desert him until things changed, and asked for a loan to pay what was demanded of him. Ka'b lent money for a living and wanted security: the women of his house, he suggested, or his sons. Ibn Maslamah answered that no one would trust a woman near the handsomest man in Yathrib, and that his sons would carry the taunt of having been their father's pledge all their lives. He offered his weapons instead, which Ka'b accepted gladly; and Silkan ibn Salama, called Abu Na'ila, Ka'b's foster-brother, and one or two others took loans on the same terms. Now they could come to his fortress armed and be expected. Abu Na'ila fixed a night, the 14th of Rabi' al-Awwal of the third year by al-Waqidi's reckoning, cloudless and under a full moon. The Prophet ﷺ walked with them as far as Baqi' al-Gharqad and sent them on with a prayer for their success. At the fortress on the edge of the city they called Ka'b down. He had lately taken a new wife, and she held him back: why were they coming at such an hour, when he was a man at war? He answered that Abu Na'ila was his foster-brother and Ibn Maslamah an old friend, and went down. They walked and talked in the moonlight until Abu Na'ila remarked on the perfume he wore, was told it came from the most scented woman in Arabia, and asked to smell his hair. Ka'b bent his head; Ibn Maslamah seized it, and the others struck. The armour he wore made it slow work, and in the dark al-Harith ibn Aws was badly cut by his own companions' swords and limped back bleeding. When they reached the Prophet ﷺ he put his saliva on the wound and it closed. The other tribes complained, and the Prophet ﷺ did nothing about it, for he had ordered it; Ibn Ishaq says that after that night no enemy of the Muslims felt safe. This was a political act by the ruler and judge of Madinah, taken against a man who had broken the Constitution by treating with the Quraysh and had crossed every line in his verse; Ka'b's own wife understood the terms he was living under, and it is not to be measured against the customs of a later age.

Placed here because: Ep. 44: "According to al-Waqidi, this took place on the 14th of Rabi' al-Awwal in the 3rd year of the Hijrah."

A few months before Uhud, the Quraysh, no longer able to use their standard caravan route after Badr, sent their annual Syria-bound trade caravan under Safwan ibn Umayyah along a northern route through Iraq, on the advice of the elder al-Aswad ibn al-Muttalib, since most tribes along the coastal route had by then given their allegiance to the Prophet ﷺ. A secret Muslim in Makkah, Salit ibn al-Nu'man, overheard one of the Quraysh elite boasting of the secret plan while drinking wine and informed the Prophet ﷺ, who sent Zayd ibn Harithah to intercept it.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 44: "a few months before the Battle of Uhud, most likely in Rabi' al-Awwal of the 3rd year." Same month as Ka'b's death; which came first is not settled.

After their defeat at Badr, the Quraysh spent a full year preparing for revenge, driven by four converging motives: religious animosity toward the new faith, personal grief for slain leaders (Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal's father and Safwan ibn Umayyah's father had both died at Badr), the economic collapse of their Syria trade route now that the Muslims controlled it, and the political threat of a growing Muslim state. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, together with Safwan and Ikrimah, went door to door reclaiming the profits of the Badr caravan from every Qurashi household that had invested in it, and used the funds to enlist allied tribes such as Kinana and Tihama. On the 7th of Shawwal, 3 AH, an army of 3,000 (with 200 horses and 700 suits of armor, and accompanied by around two dozen Qurashi women, among them Hind bint Utbah, to spur the men on with song) covered the two-week journey from Makkah to Madinah in seven days. Abu Sufyan held overall command, with Khalid ibn al-Walid on the right flank and Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal on the left. By a report not found in Ibn Ishaq, al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, who had remained behind in Makkah, sent a trusted servant racing to Madinah with the army's exact numbers; the servant covered the distance in three days and reached the Prophet ﷺ at Quba, where Ubay ibn Ka'b RA read him the letter in confidence. Rather than act on a single report, however urgent, the Prophet ﷺ sent scouts to confirm the Quraysh's position before calling a general meeting of the Muslims. When the Friday gathering convened, swelled further by a funeral that had drawn much of the city out already, the Prophet ﷺ laid out the threat and asked for counsel, giving his own view first: to stay inside Madinah and use its natural defenses, volcanic rock fields to the east and west, Mount Uhud to the north, and date palm groves to the south, which would force the Quraysh into costly street fighting. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, the city's most seasoned warrior, agreed, not out of any regard for the Prophet ﷺ, but because it was plainly the sounder position. A group of younger Companions, many of whom had missed Badr and were eager to prove themselves, pressed instead to meet the Quraysh in open battle; when the Prophet ﷺ judged that the majority wanted this, he agreed and went in to put on his armor. They then had second thoughts and told him they would not oppose him if he wished to stay (Ibn Ishaq; some retellings name Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib RA as the one who said so), but the Prophet ﷺ replied that once a prophet has put on his armor, it is not fitting for him to remove it before he has fought. He marched out on Friday, the 14th of Shawwal, dividing the roughly 700 Muslims into three contingents (the Muhajirun under Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA, the Aws under Usayd ibn Hudayr RA, and the Khazraj under al-Hubab ibn al-Mundhir RA) with only a handful of horses and 100 suits of armor between them, and led them by a secret route through the date-palm groves rather than the main road so as not to reveal their position early, passing through the garden of Mirba' ibn Qayzi, a blind hypocrite who threw dust at them and whom the Prophet ﷺ told the Companions to leave alone. On the march, Abdullah ibn Ubayy withdrew with about 300 men, publicly claiming his advice had been ignored; Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Haram RA confronted him over abandoning the Prophet ﷺ, but he insisted he did not believe there would be a fight, a claim the Qur'an later exposed as a lie (Qur'an 3:167). Some of the Aws (Banu Harithah) and Khazraj (Banu Salama) also wavered before staying, their perseverance credited to Allah's protection in Qur'an 3:122. The roughly 700 who remained reached Uhud in the early afternoon of the 14th; the Prophet ﷺ chose the site deliberately, its mountain shielding two sides and a third covered by fifty archers posted on Jabal Aynayn (later renamed Jabal al-Ruma in their honor) under Abdullah ibn Jubayr RA, with strict orders never to abandon the position regardless of how the battle appeared to be going, leaving only one narrow approach for the far larger Quraysh army to attack through. The Prophet ﷺ arranged the army for battle, turning back boys he judged too young, though Rafi ibn Khadij RA and Samura ibn Jundub RA, fifteen by Ibn Hisham's account, were allowed to remain, Rafi' as a good archer and Samurah because he could outwrestle him. On the morning of the 15th, the Prophet ﷺ offered his own sword to whoever would take it by its right; Abu Dujana RA accepted it and, in his turban of death, walked the ranks to embolden the Muslims. Abu Sufyan first tried to detach the Ansar from the Muhajirun by message, then sent Abu Amir al-Rahib (a former Aws leader who had rejected Islam) to appeal to his own people directly; the Ansar refused both approaches and renamed him Abu Amir al-Fasiq. The mubaraza opened with Talha ibn Abi Talha of Banu Abd al-Dar, the Quraysh standard-bearers, being struck down by Ali ibn Abi Talib RA: Ibn Ishaq counts him among those Ali RA killed, while another report says Ali RA left him when he begged by the ties of kinship, and he died of his wounds. The Muslim charge that followed broke the Quraysh ranks and killed the flag-bearers of Banu Abd al-Dar one by one until their standard fell. The story of Usayrim of Banu Abd al-Ashhal, who had remained the sole pagan of his subtribe for three years, belongs to this same morning: he embraced Islam after Fajr and was martyred before Zuhr, without having prayed a single rak'ah. After the Quraysh broke and fled in this initial phase, the sahaba grew complacent enough to lay down their arms and begin collecting the ghanima; the rules for dividing spoils had not yet been fully finalized, and many assumed the battle was over. The fifty archers atop Jabal al-Ruma, watching the ghanima being gathered below with no word from the Prophet ﷺ for the better part of an hour, fell into their own dispute over whether to join in; over time all but ten, led by Abdullah ibn Jubayr RA, descended from the position despite his refusal to move without the Prophet ﷺ's own command. Khalid ibn al-Walid, who had been carefully watching rather than fleeing outright, saw his opening: he worked his way in from a low-lying ditch on the army's right hidden from ground level, overran the ten remaining archers, and brought his cavalry, an estimated 100 to 150 strong, around Jabal al-Ruma to fall on the Muslims from behind, cutting the army in two: the Prophet ﷺ's own camp on one side, and the scattered, largely unarmed Muslims still collecting spoils on the other. It is said that the Prophet ﷺ was the first to see Khalid's counterattack coming and, at the risk of giving away his own location to an enemy targeting him personally, stood and shouted a warning to the Muslims. The surprise attack threw the Muslim ranks into chaos; many fled without recognizing friend from foe, and in the confusion, which the sources attribute to shaytan's instigation, some Muslims struck down other Muslims in the melee, among them al-Yaman RA, the father of Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman RA, killed by his own side before Hudhayfah's shouts to stop could be heard; Hudhayfah said, "May Allah forgive you", and when the Prophet ﷺ wanted to pay the blood money, Hudhayfah gave it as alms to the Muslims. As the Muslim ranks split, the Prophet ﷺ found himself down to a guard of nine (Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA and Talha ibn Ubaydillah RA among the Muhajirun, and seven of the Ansar, among them, by Ibn Ishaq's account, Ziyad or Umarah ibn al-Sakan; al-Bara' RA's report in al-Bukhari says twelve) while the rest of the army, believing the battle already won, was scattered across the field. One by one the Ansar of that small group went out to intercept the approaching enemy and were killed, until only Sa'd, Talha, and the Prophet ﷺ himself remained, retreating to a narrow crevice in the mountainside barely wide enough for one or two people. Sa'd and Talha fired volley after volley from the opening (the Prophet ﷺ, it is said, gathering spent arrows off the ground and handing them to Sa'd to reuse) while Abu Talha al-Ansari RA begged him not to raise his head for fear of a stray arrow, offering his own neck and chest in place of the Prophet ﷺ's (al-Bukhari). It was here that the Prophet ﷺ addressed Sa'd with words Ali RA said he never heard him use for anyone else, though al-Zubayr RA reports him saying the same to him at Qurayzah, "Fidaka abi wa ummi (may my mother and father be given in ransom for you)! Shoot, O Sa'd, shoot!" When an attacker reached Talha and severed several of his fingers, Talha cried out in pain; the Prophet ﷺ told him that had he said "Bismillah" instead, the angels would have carried him up before everyone's eyes. Qatada ibn al-Nu'man al-Awsi RA, took up the Prophet ﷺ's bow after he had shot with it until it broke, and his eye was struck so that it hung upon his cheek; the Prophet ﷺ put it back in its place with his hand, and it became his better and keener eye (Ibn Ishaq). In this same period the Prophet ﷺ was wounded several times: a stone thrown by Utbah ibn Abi Waqqas broke his lower right incisor and injured his lip; Abdullah ibn Shihab al-Zuhri wounded his forehead; and Ibn Qami'ah struck his cheekbone, driving two rings of his helmet into his cheek (Ibn Hisham, from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri RA). Streaming blood, the Prophet ﷺ was heard to say, "How can a people succeed who have wounded their own Prophet ﷺ while he called them to their Lord?" Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA later reported seeing two men dressed in dazzling white fighting fiercely at the Prophet ﷺ's side that day whom he never saw before or since. Around this same time, Ubay ibn Khalaf, a Makkan who had long vowed to kill the Prophet ﷺ on a horse he was fattening for that purpose, charged him directly; the Prophet ﷺ, reminding him of his own earlier reply that he would be the one to kill Ubay instead, took a spear from a companion and struck him in the neck. The wound looked minor, but Ubay himself insisted it was fatal, and he died on the road home before reaching Makkah. After cutting down Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA, his killer Ibn Qami'ah thought he had killed the Prophet ﷺ and shouted that Muhammad ﷺ was dead, and the false report spread fast enough to demoralize part of the Muslim line, some of whom sat down mid-battle, before Anas ibn al-Nadr RA rallied a group of them back into the fight asking what they would do with life after him and telling them to die as he had died, and fought on until he was killed, disfigured beyond recognition except by his sister identifying the tips of his fingers. It was Ka'b ibn Malik RA who first recognized the Prophet ﷺ by his eyes and moved to announce he was alive; the Prophet ﷺ signed to him to be silent rather than give away his position; a later report adds that the two exchanged armour. Abu Bakr RA, Umar ibn al-Khattab RA, Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA, and Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah RA fought their way back to him; finding the two rings of his helmet still lodged in his cheek, Abu Ubaydah is reported to have pulled each free with his own teeth rather than risk further injury with his hands, losing a tooth each time. As the fighting wound down, Abu Sufyan called out from a distance asking whether Muhammad ﷺ was still alive, and then whether Abu Bakr RA or Umar RA were; the Prophet ﷺ told the Muslims not to answer him. When Abu Sufyan declared victory and credited the idol Hubal, the Prophet ﷺ had the Muslims answer this time, "Allah is mightier and more worthy of honor", unwilling to let shirk against Allah go unchallenged even while staying silent about his own survival. Abu Sufyan swore the two sides would meet again the following year at Badr, and the Quraysh withdrew. Surveying the field afterward, the Prophet ﷺ found Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, his uncle, mutilated by Hind bint Utbah RA (who had cut open his stomach and taken his liver in revenge for her own father and brother killed at Badr) and wept, vowing to mutilate thirty Quraysh bodies in return before Allah revealed Qur'an 16:126 limiting retaliation to no more than what was suffered, after which he forbade mutilation outright. On the way back, Hamnah bint Jahsh RA met the army and was told in turn of the deaths of her brother Abdullah, her uncle Hamzah RA and her husband Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA. Wailing broke out across Madinah for the dead before the Prophet ﷺ, hearing it for Hamzah RA's sake, allowed it once and then forbade it thereafter as a general rule. The martyrs (reported as around seventy, most of them Ansar) were buried two, three, or four to a grave in the clothes they had died in, without ghusl, and by Jabir RA's report in al-Bukhari without funeral prayer (a report from Ibn Abbas RA in Ibn Ishaq says he prayed over Hamzah RA and the others), on the Prophet ﷺ's instruction to bury whoever had memorized the most Qur'an first; only one prisoner was taken the entire battle, Abu Azzah al-Jumahi, executed for breaking a previous pardon on condition he never fight the Muslims again. Before that, the Prophet ﷺ had sent Ali ibn Abi Talib RA to follow the Quraysh, and he found them riding their camels and leading their horses, a sign they were making for Makkah. The next morning, Sunday the 16th, the Prophet ﷺ called out those who had fought the day before, wounded as they were, and led them to Hamra al-Asad, about eight miles from Madinah, where they stayed the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Sometime before or during this period, accounts differ on when he told it, the Prophet ﷺ recounted a dream to the sahaba: he had seen his own sword break in his hand, then return whole; and he had seen cattle, which he took as a good sign. He later explained the broken sword as the setback the Muslims suffered, its mending as the victory and unity Allah would restore to them afterward, and a third image, of himself wearing armor, as pointing to Madinah itself as their protection.

Placed here because: Ep. 46: "On the 7th of Shawwal in the 3rd year of the Hijrah ... the Quraysh set out"; "he ﷺ marched out ... on Friday, the 14th of Shawwal." Ep. 47: the battle "occurred on the 15th of Shawwal, which was a Saturday morning."

The day after Uhud, worried the retreating Quraysh might turn back to finish off the Muslims, the Prophet ﷺ called for volunteers to form a pursuing contingent, restricting it to those who had fought at Uhud (excluding the 300 who had withdrawn with Abdullah ibn Ubayy). About 70 sahaba, at their head Ali ibn Abi Talib, marched out and camped at Hamra al-Asad; the Prophet ﷺ joined them the next day and they remained three days to make sure the Quraysh did not return, before returning to Madinah.

Placed here because: Ep. 50: "This was on the Sunday, the 16th of Shawwal, one day after Uhud."

Wounded in the neck at Uhud by a spear thrust from the Prophet ﷺ himself, Ubay ibn Khalaf was carried off by his companions who tried to reassure him the wound would heal. He insisted it was fatal, and died before reaching Makkah, in the valley of Sarif.

Placed here because: ~ Wounded at Uhud and dead on the road to Makkah; the sources say only "shortly after".

Abu Salama Abdullah ibn Abd al-Asad RA, cousin of the Prophet ﷺ through his mother and husband of Umm Salama RA, was severely wounded at the Battle of Uhud and died of his wounds a few months later. On his deathbed, Umm Salama RA proposed they promise not to remarry after the other's death so as to be reunited in Jannah; he asked whether she would obey him, and when she agreed, instructed her instead to remarry after his death, and made du'a that Allah grant her a husband better than himself. Before this, Abu Salama RA had come home joyfully relating a hadith he had heard from the Prophet ﷺ: that anyone afflicted by a calamity who is patient and recites the du'a "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un..." will be rewarded and given something better in its place. After his death, Umm Salama RA recited this du'a herself.

Placed here because: ~ He died of his Uhud wound "a few months after"; no month is given.

Hearing that Khalid ibn Sufyan al-Hudhali, chieftain of Hudhayl, was gathering an army to surprise-attack Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ sent Abdullah ibn Unays al-Juhani alone to pre-emptively kill him. The Prophet ﷺ described the chieftain's location and terrifying appearance in advance though he had never seen him. Abdullah found him in the Valley of Arana, prayed a form of Salat al-Khawf while approaching so as not to miss Zuhr, posed as a would-be recruit, and killed him.

Placed here because: Ep. 51: "the beginnings of the incident [al-Raji] actually go back a little bit; we need to discuss the Expedition of Abdullah ibn Unays first." Dated Muharram 4 AH.

In revenge for the killing of their chieftain Khalid ibn Sufyan, the tribe of Hudhayl paid Udal and al-Qara to pretend to accept Islam, travel to Madinah, and beg the Prophet ﷺ to send teachers of the Quran and religion. Ten sahaba under Asim ibn Thabit volunteered. At the Well of al-Raji, 100 warriors ambushed them. The sahaba took a hilltop position and fought until Asim and most of the others were killed. The last three, Khubayb ibn Adi, Zayd ibn al-Dathinah, and Abdullah ibn Tariq, surrendered on a promise of safety that was immediately broken; Abdullah ibn Tariq was killed on the spot for refusing captivity, while Khubayb and Zayd were taken to Makkah and sold to be executed in revenge for men they had killed at Badr and Uhud.

Placed here because: Ep. 51: "This incident will lead to the Massacre of al-Raji."

After the chieftain Abu Bara Amir ibn Malik guaranteed protection for Muslim preachers in Najd, the Prophet ﷺ sent 70 of the best reciters and worshippers, mostly of the Ahl al-Suffa. Their messenger Haram ibn Milhan was treacherously killed by the arrogant chieftain Amir ibn al-Tufayl, who then rallied the tribes of Asiya, Ra'l, and Dhakwan (roughly 400-500 men) and massacred the 70 at the Well of Bir Ma'una. Only Ka'b ibn Zayd (left for dead beneath the bodies of the shuhada), Amr ibn Umayyah, and al-Mundhir ibn Muhammad were not killed outright in the initial attack; al-Mundhir chose to go back in and was killed, while Amr was freed and, on his way home, unknowingly killed two men under the Prophet ﷺ's protection before bringing the news to Madinah. According to one report the Prophet ﷺ learned of this and of al-Raji on the same night, and grieved so greatly that he prayed qunut against the four tribes responsible (Asiya, Ra'l, Dhakwan, and Banu Lahyan) in every prayer for a month.

Placed here because: Ep. 51: "this second incident occurred at the exact same time as the Incident of al-Raji, so much so ... the Prophet ﷺ got the news of both of them on the same night." Ep. 53 dates Bir Ma'una to Safar 4 AH.

At the end of the Battle of Uhud, Abu Sufyan had called out that the two sides would meet again one year later at Badr. In Sha'ban of the 4th year of the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ marched out with around 1,500 sahaba, with Ali ibn Abi Talib RA as flag bearer, and camped at Badr for over a week awaiting the Quraysh. The Quraysh had gathered an army of about 2,000 but marched out half-heartedly; citing a year of drought and hardship, they turned back without engaging.

Placed here because: Sha'ban 4 AH in the sources, the year Abu Sufyan had named from the foot of Uhud (Ep. 49).

Ibn Ishaq places Dhat al-Riqa in Sha'ban of the fourth year, straight after the appointment at Badr that the Quraysh failed to keep; al-Bukhari places it after Khaybar. The strongest evidence for the earlier date is Jabir's own story, told below, in which he has just married after his father's death at Uhud and the Prophet ﷺ does not yet know it. Word had come that Ghatafan, a large Bedouin tribe to the north with a name for raiding, meant to strike first. The Prophet ﷺ marched with seven hundred men, and for a week or two the two sides camped within sight of each other. Ghatafan never came on, and no blow was struck. What the expedition is remembered for is four things that happened around it. The first is the prayer of fear. It was here that Allah sent down the procedure of Salat al-Khawf in Surah al-Nisa: the imam prays the whole prayer while the army prays in two shifts, one rank standing guard with its weapons while the other prostrates, then changing places, so that the enemy never finds them all with their backs turned. The second was on the way home. It was high summer, and when the sun grew unbearable in the late morning the army scattered for whatever shade the valley offered and slept. The Prophet ﷺ slept under a tree with his sword hung from a branch. A Bedouin of Ghatafan, Ghawrath ibn al-Harith, had been shadowing the column, walked through the sleeping camp, took the sword down, drew it, and woke him with the blade in his face. Are you afraid of me? No. Are you not afraid, when I hold the sword? No. In another telling the question was who would protect him now, and the answer was Allah; and at that word the man began to shake, and the sword fell from his hand. The Prophet ﷺ picked it up, turned it on him, and asked who would protect him. Be the better of the two who held it, the man said. Asked to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad ﷺ is His Messenger ﷺ, he would not, but he swore never again to fight him or help anyone who did. Only then did the Prophet ﷺ call out for the Companions, who woke, in Jabir's words, to his voice, and found him with his sword at the Bedouin's neck. He let him go, and Ghawrath went back to his people saying he had come from the best of men. The third was that night. Ammar ibn Yasir and Abbad ibn Bishr were posted to watch for Ghatafan, and Abbad took the first watch and stood to pray. A Ghatafani archer put an arrow into him; he drew it out and went on praying, and a second, and drew that out too, and only when he felt he would faint did he wake Ammar, who saw the blood and asked why he had not broken off. He had been reciting Surah Yusuf, he said, and had not wanted to leave it; and but for the duty the Prophet ﷺ had given him he would rather have died than stop. The fourth is Jabir's. On the road back his camel, the oldest and weakest in the army, dropped him to the rear, and he rode alone with his troubles: his father Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Haram dead at Uhud, his debts unpaid, seven sisters to feed and no brother. A voice asked who was there at the back, and it was the Prophet ﷺ. He asked why Jabir was downcast and heard it all, then asked whether he had married. He had. A girl or a widow? A widow, said Jabir; and to the question why he had not taken a girl he could play with and laugh with, he answered that he had wanted someone to look after his sisters, not one more to look after, and was told he had done right. Then the Prophet ﷺ had him dismount, mounted the old camel himself, struck it with a bismillah, and Jabir watched it become the fastest camel he had ever seen, racing ahead until he caught up with the Prophet ﷺ; who at once asked to buy it. Jabir refused, then offered it as a gift, then was told again to sell it, and the bargaining ran from one dirham to forty, with Jabir's condition that he ride it home first. The Prophet ﷺ told him not to burst in on his wife at night but to let the crier announce the army so that she could make herself ready for him. Next morning in the mosque he was asked whether he had prayed two rak'at, told Bilal to weigh out the forty and add more, and, as Jabir turned to leave, called him back: he had forgotten his camel. He had sold it. Did you think I would take your camel from you? Take the money, and take the camel. Ibn Hajar said a hundred lessons could be drawn from the story, and the jurists cite it for bargaining and conditions in sale; what it shows first is the care that noticed one grieving boy at the tail of an army of seven hundred.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 52: "Ibn Ishaq places this ghazwa right now, i.e., in the 4th year during Sha'ban. However, people such as Bukhari said it occurred after the Battle of Khaybar [7 AH]." Placed on Ibn Ishaq's dating, after the appointment at Badr.

After the incidents of al-Raji and Bir Ma'una (Safar, 4 AH), the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr RA, and Umar RA went to the Banu Nadir south of Madinah to ask for help paying the blood money owed for two men Amr ibn Umayyah RA had mistakenly killed, as the Constitution of Madinah obliged the wealthy tribes of the city to share such a burden. The Banu Nadir leaders welcomed them and had the Prophet ﷺ and the sahaba wait outside their fortress while they withdrew to confer. Inside, one leader proposed dropping a rock from the fortress wall onto the Prophet ﷺ to kill him; another objected that it would cause serious backlash, but the plan was approved. Before it could be carried out, the Prophet ﷺ suddenly stood and walked back to Madinah without a word, having been told by Jibril AS to leave at once. The sahaba, not understanding why, waited for him to return until they eventually went back to Madinah themselves, where the Prophet ﷺ explained what had happened. Tension already existed between the two sides before this: the Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq reports that some of the Banu Nadir had earlier conspired to murder the People of the Suffa, a plot exposed before it could be carried out; Musa ibn Uqba records that the Banu Nadir gave the Quraysh logistical help and knowledge of the terrain at the Battle of Uhud; and one of their own chieftains, Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, had already been assassinated for his open hostility to the Muslims.

Placed here because: ~ Ep. 44 places the Banu Nadir's attempt on the Prophet ﷺ's life "after Uhud"; it is the immediate cause of the expulsion that follows.

After the Banu Nadir's attempt to assassinate him, the Prophet ﷺ sent Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA to deliver an ultimatum: leave Madinah within ten days, or be killed. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, their long-standing ally from the Aws and Khazraj, secretly promised the Banu Nadir his full support and 2,000 reinforcements from the Ghatafan, and vowed he would fight alongside them or go into exile with them if needed. Trusting these promises, Huyayy ibn Akhtab persuaded the tribe, over the objection of some of their own people, to defy the ultimatum and stay. The same day, the Prophet ﷺ marched roughly 700 Muslims to their fortresses and laid siege. During the siege he also went to the Banu Qurayza to renew their oaths under the Constitution of Madinah and confirm they would not join the Banu Nadir; they agreed to remain neutral. Abdullah ibn Ubayy never sent the promised help. As the siege dragged on for seven to ten days, the Prophet ﷺ ordered some of the Banu Nadir's date palms cut down and burned to break their resolve, which distressed them greatly and also unsettled some of the sahaba until the Qur'an affirmed it was permitted. With no help coming, the Banu Nadir agreed to an unconditional surrender. The Prophet ﷺ allowed them to leave in exile with as much of their property as their camels could carry, forbidding only weapons; out of spite, many of them tore down their own houses rather than leave them intact for the Muslims. Two or three individuals accepted Islam and were allowed to keep their possessions and remain. The land, orchards, and property left behind were fay' (property gained without battle), which the Prophet ﷺ distributed mainly among the landless Muhajirun so that the Ansar and Muhajirun would be more economically equal, along with three landless Ansar who had fought in a number of battles.

Placed here because: Ep. 53: "the strongest opinion is it took place in Shawwal of the 4th year of the Hijrah."