A sariyya of 30 sahaba under Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA was sent to al-Qurta' against the tribe of Banu Bakr ibn Kilab in Shawwal of 6 AH. On the return journey the sahaba captured, without realizing it, Thumamah ibn Uthal, the chieftain of the Banu Hanifa and a public enemy of the Prophet ﷺ who had vowed to kill him. The Prophet ﷺ, who had earlier prayed for control over Thumamah, recognized him and ordered he be treated with honor. Thumamah was held for three days in the Prophet ﷺ's masjid, given the Prophet ﷺ's own food, and questioned each morning. On the third day he was released, and he returned shortly after to declare his shahada. He then performed umrah in Makkah, openly proclaiming his new faith, and afterward cut off the grain supply from the Najd to the Quraysh until the Prophet ﷺ, moved by Abu Sufyan's appeal, wrote to Thumamah asking that the supply resume.
The Prophet ﷺ sent a letter to Musaylimah al-Kadhdhab of Banu Hanifa calling him to Islam. Musaylimah replied that he would only accept if he were given a share of power.
Musaylimah al-Kadhdhab, the aging and highly respected leader of Banu Hanifa in al-Yamamah, watched his tribe fracture as the nobleman Thumamah ibn Uthal RA [see episode 62] and his followers embraced Islam while others held to the old ways. Musaylimah told his people that if the Prophet ﷺ would grant him power after his death and share prophethood with him "like Musa shared it with his brother Harun," he would follow him, and traveled to Madinah to negotiate. His followers brought him into the Masjid draped in fine cloth like a king. He put his condition to the Prophet ﷺ directly, who refused him even a mere stick, let alone rule or prophethood. Returning home, Musaylimah wrote a letter proclaiming himself co-Messenger of Allah with the Prophet ﷺ, splitting "the matter" between himself and the Quraysh; the two envoys who delivered it affirmed its contents, and the Prophet ﷺ, restrained only by the immunity owed to envoys, rebuked them for their kufr. Musaylimah went on to compose mocking imitations of the Qur'an, including a parody of Surah al-Kawthar and a "Surah al-Difda'" (Chapter of the Frog), which even a passing non-Muslim Arab recognized as the words of a liar.
Musaylimah al-Kadhdhab, the false prophet of Banu Hanifa, was killed in the Wars of Ridda by Wahshi RA, who struck him down with the very javelin he had used years earlier to kill Hamzah ibn Abdul Muttalib RA at Uhud, seeking to atone for that killing.
In the year of delegations Musaylimah, Maslamah ibn Habib of the Banu Hanifa, an old man who had studied Christianity in Jerusalem and held the respect of all al-Yamama, came to Madinah carried into the mosque under fine cloth like a king, and offered to follow the Prophet ﷺ if he were made his successor and given a share in prophethood. The Prophet ﷺ, holding a palm branch, told him he would not give him so much as that stick, that Allah would deal with him, and that he was certain Musaylimah was what he had been shown: two gold bracelets on his arms in a dream, which he blew on and which flew away, two liars who would come after him, al-Aswad al-Ansi and Musaylimah of al-Yamama. Home again, Musaylimah wrote as one messenger of Allah to another that the matter was divided between them, half to the Quraysh and half to him, and the Prophet ﷺ told his two envoys that but for the custom that envoys are not harmed he would have had them killed. Musaylimah recited a quran of his own, of frogs and elephants; a passing Arab told him to his face that they both knew he was a liar. When the Prophet ﷺ died the Banu Hanifa, the largest of the tribes that apostatised and the worst of them, rose behind Musaylimah, and in 12 AH Abu Bakr sent Khalid ibn al-Walid against them. The battle at Yamama was the bloodiest of the Ridda wars. Among the Muslims who marched was Wahshi, who had heard of the false prophet and asked Allah to let him take Musaylimah's life in exchange for what he had done to Hamzah at Uhud; he carried the same javelin, threw it as he had thrown it that day, and an Ansari's sword struck from the other side in the same moment, so that he never knew which of them had killed Musaylimah. Among the dead were Abu Hudhayfah ibn Utbah, who had said after Badr that he would not feel safe from one sentence he had spoken there until Allah accepted him as a martyr, and Ukasha ibn Mihsan, who fell still carrying the sword that had been a stick of wood in his hand at Badr.