Tamim

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!"

Imran ibn Husayn RA narrated that while he sat in the Masjid, a delegation of Banu Tamim (crude, harsh Bedouins of Najd, from whom much of the Confederate army at the Battle of the Trench had come) arrived announcing their Islam. The Prophet ﷺ told them, "I give you good news, O people of Tamim" (meaning of Jannah), but they misunderstood this as an offer of wealth and asked him for money instead; the Prophet ﷺ, showing his adab, said nothing. The Himyarites of Yemen then arrived and announced their own Islam. The Prophet ﷺ said, "O people of Himyar, accept the good news, since the people of Banu Tamim did not accept it." They replied, "We accept the good news! And we have come all the way from Yemen asking you about the creation: how did Allah create it, and how did it all begin?" The Prophet ﷺ answered, "There was Allah, and there was nothing before Him. And He then created the heavens and the earth while His Throne was on the water." Imran ibn Husayn RA then recounted that, right at that point, someone called out that his camel had fled; he ran after it into the desert and, catching neither the camel nor the rest of the hadith, later wished he had let the camel go so he could have heard the whole thing, and since the Himyar delegates themselves went home without becoming narrators of hadith, this account was never completed for later generations.