Hawazin

After the Conquest of Makkah, the tribe of Thaqif (custodians of Ta'if and its idol al-Lat) resolved to fight rather than accept the end of paganism in Arabia and the loss of the Ka'bah's custodianship to the now-defeated Quraysh. Thaqif sent emissaries to every pagan tribe in the region, and over 20,000 pagan fighters gathered under their banner, the largest gathering of pagan Arabs in Arabian history. Thaqif and the Bedouin tribe of Hawazin were the two largest contingents, together forming around 10,000. The Prophet ﷺ sent the new convert Abdullah ibn Abi Hadrat RA to scout Ta'if's forces; he returned reporting he had never seen so large a gathering, prompting Umar ibn al-Khattab RA to doubt the report and Abdullah to rebuke him for once having disbelieved the Prophet ﷺ himself. The Prophet ﷺ then mobilized roughly 12,000 men (10,000 who had come from Madinah and 2,000 new Makkan converts, some of whom, like Safwan ibn Umayyah RA, were not yet even Muslim) and borrowed a hundred coats of mail with their weapons from Safwan as a loan to be returned. The Muslims left Makkah on the 6th of Shawwal, 8 AH (after roughly 19 days there, per Sahih al-Bukhari, though other reports give shorter periods), and reached the valley of Hunayn on the 10th, camping there rather than at Ta'if itself since Thaqif had already massed in that region. Among the pagan coalition, the elderly and blind nobleman Durayd ibn al-Sima urged the newly elected young chieftain Malik ibn Awf al-Nasri to send the tribe's women, children, and livestock back to safety rather than bring them onto the battlefield, warning that their presence would not help the men fight; Malik refused, even threatening to kill himself rather than be overruled, and the people's families and flocks stayed on the field. Thaqif and Hawazin had laid a trap: a small decoy contingent was stationed at the mouth of the valley the Muslims had to cross, while the bulk of their army and hundreds of archers hid in the mountains on either side. As the Muslims advanced, the decoy fled, drawing the Muslim army deep into the pass, at which point volleys of arrows fell from the unseen archers above and the main pagan force charged. The Muslim army, many of them raw new converts without proper armor, panicked and fled in every direction, leaving the Prophet ﷺ almost alone on his mule; among the small group who stayed near him was the Ansariyyah Umm Sulaym, who leapt from her mount and drew a hand dagger, telling the Companions that she would use it on anyone who reached her. He ﷺ called out, "Come to me! I am the Messenger of Allah ﷺ! I am Muhammad ﷺ, the son of Abdullah!" and declared, "I am the Prophet ﷺ, there is no lie about this! I am the son of Abdul Muttalib," invoking both his prophethood and his tribal lineage. He ﷺ called on his uncle al-Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib RA, known for his powerful voice, to call the fleeing Muhajirun and Ansar back by name and by tribe; al-Abbas stood on his mount and rallied them to return, and as they came back fighting the Prophet ﷺ declared, "Now the real fight begins!", the first recorded use of this Arabic expression. He ﷺ then took a handful of dust, threw it toward Thaqif, and said, "May the faces be disfigured," after which the tide of the battle turned and the Muslims surged forward. As the Prophet ﷺ called out and al-Abbas rallied the Companions tribe by tribe, they slowly regathered around him. Allah then sent down His sakina (tranquility) upon the Prophet ﷺ and the believers and, as Surah al-Tawbah 9:25-26 relates, sent invisible forces to their aid; a number of Muslims and non-Muslims reported seeing these angels descend, among them Jubayr ibn Mut'im RA, who described a dense black cloud coming down from the sky and dispersing among the people like ants. Amid the chaos, Shayba ibn Uthman (a newly converted cousin of the Prophet ﷺ from the Banu Abd al-Dar whose father Uthman ibn Abi Talha had been killed at Uhud fighting the Muslims) rode at the Prophet ﷺ's unguarded back meaning to avenge his father, until a blinding light stopped him and the Prophet ﷺ, turning and sensing what was happening, made du'a for his guidance; Iman entered Shayba's heart at once and he turned to fight alongside the Muslims for the rest of the battle. Having relied entirely on the ambush, Thaqif and Hawazin had no fallback plan: once the Muslims regathered and charged, the pagan coalition fled in every direction. The Prophet ﷺ ordered the Companions to pursue them into the surrounding valleys and mountains before the scattered tribesmen could regroup, and a long series of mini-expeditions followed, in which several of the sahaba were wounded or killed, among them Abu Amir RA, the uncle of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari RA, mortally struck by a javelin. Walking the battlefield afterward, the Prophet ﷺ came upon the body of a woman who had been killed and said it was not right that she had been killed; learning it was Khalid ibn al-Walid RA who had killed her, he sent word forbidding him from killing any more women, children, or other noncombatants. A second large body of the fleeing coalition regrouped at a place called Awtas, where a further skirmish took place with some Muslim casualties before the Muslims prevailed. In total, only four Muslims were killed in the Battle of Hunayn itself, though many were wounded, famously including all four of the future Khulafa al-Rashidun, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali RA, who all stood with the Prophet ﷺ and were all wounded that day.

After the Siege of Ta'if, the Prophet ﷺ returned to Ji'ranah, where the ghanima and prisoners of war of Hunayn had been kept under guard, and camped there for over a week, waiting for the tribe of Hawazin to come and accept Islam so that their families and property could be returned to them, as had happened before with the Banu al-Mustaliq. Nearly a month after Hunayn, the Hawazin still had not come, so the Prophet ﷺ began distributing the ghanima. Ghanima left behind by a fleeing enemy (rather than taken from the slain) is left to the ruler's discretion to distribute, so the soldiers had no guaranteed share of it. The Prophet ﷺ gave the largest gifts ever seen in Islam up to that point, one by one, mostly to leading men of the Quraysh who were new or not-yet Muslims: the muallafati qulubuhum, those whose hearts needed reconciling to Islam. He gave 100 camels each to Abu Sufyan ibn Harb RA, to Safwan ibn Umayyah RA (who was still not Muslim and was moved to accept Islam by this generosity), to Uyaynah ibn Hisn of Ghatafan, and to al-Aqra' ibn Habis of Tamim, besides large gifts to Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan and to al-Harith ibn Hisham RA, the full brother of Abu Jahal, perhaps 60-70 people in total, with smaller shares also given to the Muhajirun. The Ansar received nothing from this particular large share, and some of the younger Ansar began to murmur that swords still dripping with the enemy's blood earned them nothing while the Quraysh went home with fortunes. Sa'd ibn Ubadah RA, chief of the Ansar, brought this to the Prophet ﷺ, who gathered the Ansar alone in a tent and delivered one of the most moving speeches of his life in praise of them, explaining that he gave to the new converts out of concern for their weaker hearts while trusting that what Allah had placed in the Ansar's hearts was worth more than any gift, and asking them whether they were not content to return with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself while others returned with sheep and camels; the Ansar wept and declared themselves content with Islam and with him. As word of the Prophet ﷺ's generosity spread, Bedouins flocked in seeking money: one chieftain grabbed the Prophet ﷺ's collar demanding a share, and on another occasion Bedouins crowded so close begging that his garment caught on a thorn bush; when the money was gone he told them that if he had as many camels as the surrounding shrubs he would give them all away rather than be found miserly. It was also here that a man with a straggly beard accused the Prophet ﷺ of injustice in the distribution (the beginning of what would become the Khawarij mentality), and when Umar ibn al-Khattab RA asked to execute him for it, the Prophet ﷺ refused for the sake of the community's wellbeing and foretold that people like him would recite the Qur'an fluently while leaving Islam as an arrow leaves its target. Eventually the Hawazin came and accepted Islam, hoping their property could still be returned; the Prophet ﷺ told them it was too late for their property but let them choose between it and their families, and they chose their families. The next day, after Zuhr, the Prophet ﷺ gave up his own tribe's share of the prisoners first, prompting the other Quraysh leaders to follow suit and return their captives freely; a few newly Muslim Bedouin tribes asked to be paid instead, and the Prophet ﷺ promised to compensate them from future revenue. In this way all of the Hawazin's families, though not their property, were restored to them. Before leaving Ji'ranah for Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ entered ihram there and performed his third of four Umrahs in his lifetime. Among the Hawazin who came to Ji'ranah, the Prophet ﷺ specifically asked after their chieftain Malik ibn Awf al-Nasri, who had fled into Ta'if with Thaqif rather than surrender. The Prophet ﷺ sent word that if Malik came to him as a Muslim, his family, property, and a hundred camels besides would be restored to him; unwilling to live on without his tribe, family, and wealth, Malik accepted, came to the Prophet ﷺ, embraced Islam, and was reinstated as chieftain over his own people. Malik then composed verses declaring the Prophet ﷺ a true prophet, and the Tamimi chieftain al-Aqra' ibn Habis, reflecting on the scale of the Prophet ﷺ's generosity, remarked, "I have just come from a man who doesn't care about poverty! Wallahi, this man is a prophet, for no king would do what he has done!"