Banu al-Nadir

In the days before the arrival, the Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah, went out every morning toward Quba to wait for the Prophet ﷺ. Quba was the outermost settlement of Madinah on the side facing Makkah. Each day they waited until the midday heat forced them back home. One day, just after they had gone home, the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA appeared in the distance. A Jewish man picking dates at the top of a palm tree was the first to see them. He shouted, "O Arabs, your king has arrived!" The Prophet ﷺ entered on a Monday in the 14th year of the dawah, which became the first year of the Hijrah. Hundreds of the Ansar rushed out to receive him. Al-Bara' ibn Azib RA, one of the Ansar, recalled that over 500 men came out armed and dressed up. The women climbed onto the rooftops and the children crowded around to see. The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA waited about a week at Quba for Ali RA, Aisha RA, and Asma RA to arrive. Then they all entered central Madinah together, reportedly on a Friday. Every companion wanted the Prophet ﷺ to stay with him. The Prophet ﷺ let his camel walk freely and said, "Let the camel be, because Allah has taken charge of it." Wherever it sat down would be the site of his mosque and his house. It sat on an open piece of ground used for drying dates. The Prophet ﷺ asked which of his relatives lived closest, since his great-grandmother had come from the Banu al-Najjar clan of Madinah. Khalid ibn Zayd, known as Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, came forward and said he was from the Banu al-Najjar. This made him roughly the Prophet ﷺ's sixth cousin. So the Prophet ﷺ chose to stay with him until his own house was built. The poem Tala'a al-badru alayna is popularly said to have greeted him on this arrival. Sh. Yasir Qadhi argues that this cannot be so, because Thaniyat al-Wada', the pass named in the poem, lies on the road north of Madinah, not on the road from Makkah. If the singing happened, it was on his return from Tabuk.

When Allah made zakat (the obligatory yearly charity) binding, Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, one of the leaders of the Jews of Madinah, went to his friends among the Ansar (the people of Madinah) who had become Muslim. He told them not to give away any of their money, because he was worried they would become poor. He also told them not to rush to part with their wealth, since they did not know what would become of "this man", meaning the Prophet ﷺ.

Badr is a well on a plain about 130 km south-west of Madinah, where the road to Syria runs. It was named after the man of the Banu Damra who dug it. The battle fought there on Friday, 17 Ramadan 2 AH, was never meant to be a battle. In the year since the Hijrah, permission to fight had come down. The Muslims had begun to strike at the one thing that made the Quraysh what they were. That was their caravan road, which ran past Madinah. First came the expedition to al-Abwa, then the raid that saw the first arrow shot in the way of Allah, then al-Ushayra. At al-Ushayra, the Prophet ﷺ missed Abu Sufyan's great caravan, on its way north, by a single day. Then came Nakhla, where eight men killed a man of the Quraysh in the sacred month. That handed the Quraysh a grievance. Abu Jahl had once threatened Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA at the Ka'bah for sheltering the Muslims. Sa'd had then sworn in front of the Ka'bah to cut the Quraysh off from their trade, which was dearer to them than tawaf. Shortly before the battle, the qibla turned from Jerusalem to Makkah. Ibn Ishaq places this in Sha'ban. In Ramadan the same caravan was due back from Syria, led by Abu Sufyan. By some reports it had a thousand camels. It carried the money and goods of the Quraysh, and Ibn Ishaq says that thirty or forty men guarded it. The Prophet ﷺ sent out scouts. According to Muslim, one scout, Busaysah, brought his report to a house where only the boy Anas RA was present. Other reports name Talha ibn Ubaydillah RA and Sa'id ibn Zayd RA as the scouts, and Ibn Ishaq names Basbas ibn Amr and Adiy ibn Abi al-Zaghba' as the two sent ahead to Badr. The Prophet ﷺ then told the people that anyone whose mount was ready should ride with him at once. He would not wait for those whose animals were grazing outside the town. In Ibn Ishaq's telling, he named the Quraysh caravan as the target when he called them out. It was meant to be a quick seizure, so the men came as they were. There were around 313 or 315 of them. Of these, 83 were Muhajirun, 62 were from the Aws and 170 were from the Khazraj. By one report they had two horses, which belonged to Zubayr RA and al-Miqdad RA. Ali RA said that al-Miqdad was their only horseman. They had seventy camels, with three men sharing each one. In Ibn Mas'ud RA's report, the Prophet ﷺ shared his camel with Ali RA and Abu Lubaba RA. Ibn Ishaq names Ali RA and Marthad ibn Abi Marthad RA instead. His two companions begged him to ride. He answered that they were no stronger than he was, and that he needed the reward no less than they did. He judged al-Bara' ibn Azib RA and Abdullah ibn Umar RA too young to fight. Hudhayfah RA and his father were held back for another reason. The Quraysh had once made them swear never to fight against Muhammad ﷺ, and an oath is an oath, even to an enemy. A pagan of Madinah, famous for his courage, asked three times to join. He was refused twice, because the Muslims do not seek help from an idolater, until he took the shahada. The blind Ibn Umm Maktum stayed behind in Madinah. By one report, Abu Lubaba RA was sent back from the road to take charge of the city. Abu Sufyan had been on his guard since al-Ushayra. He found the scouts' campsite and broke open the camel droppings. Inside he recognised the date stones of Yathrib. He turned the caravan down to the coast road, and sent Damdam ibn Amr al-Ghifari racing to Makkah. Three days before Damdam arrived, Atikah bint Abdul Muttalib had a dream. In it, a crier on a camel called the Quraysh traitors and promised them death in three days. Then a rock rolled down from Abu Qubays and shattered against every house in the city. Her brother al-Abbas told her to keep the dream to herself. But he told one friend about it, and before long Abu Jahl was sneering at the Banu Abdul Muttalib for producing a prophetess. On the third day Damdam rode in. His camel's nose was slit and his shirt was torn, and he was crying out that Muhammad ﷺ was upon the caravan. Makkah raised an army at speed. Every household sent a man or hired one to go. By some reports the army set out 1,300 strong, with a hundred horses and six hundred coats of mail. Umar RA's report in Muslim and Ahmad says that it stood at Badr about a thousand strong. Abu Lahab stayed behind and paid a man who owed him money to go in his place. By some reports Utbah ibn Rabi'ah did not want to fight his own kin, until his brother Shaybah shamed him into it. The same reports say that Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt had once spat in the Prophet ﷺ's face and had been promised death outside Makkah. He did not dare to go until a kinsman lent him the fastest camel in the city. Umayyah ibn Khalaf, fat and fearful, meant to stay at home. According to al-Bukhari, Abu Jahl told him that if the chief of the valley stayed, the people would stay too. According to Ibn Ishaq, Uqba brought him an incense burner and told him to perfume himself, because he belonged with the women. Umayyah then bought the best camel in Makkah. He told his wife that he meant to go only a short way. Every one of these men was on the list the Prophet ﷺ had named in his prayer on the day the entrails were thrown on his back. By one report, before they marched, the Quraysh held the curtains of the Ka'bah. They asked Allah to give victory to the better of the two parties. The Qur'an says that this prayer was answered, against them. Outside Makkah the army nearly turned back. They were afraid that the Banu Bakr would raid the empty city. Then Iblis himself came to them in the shape of Suraqa ibn Malik, a chief of Kinanah. He promised them his protection and rode with them. At Juhfa, Juhaym ibn al-Salt of the Banu al-Muttalib had a dream. In it a crier named Utbah, Shaybah, Abu Jahl and Umayyah among the dead. He also saw a camel stabbed in the chest, whose blood spattered every tent. Abu Jahl scoffed that here was another prophet from the Banu al-Muttalib. Then a messenger arrived from Abu Sufyan. He said that the caravan was safe and that the army should go home. Abu Jahl said they would go on to Badr anyway. They would camp there for three days, drink and be sung to, and let all Arabia hear that the Quraysh feared no one. Al-Akhnas ibn Shariq told the Banu Zuhrah to lay the charge of cowardice on him and go home. They did, and so did Talib ibn Abi Talib with some others. Meanwhile the Muslims had begun to hear of an army. The Prophet ﷺ had been shown in a dream that he would fight. By some reports he asked them twice what they thought of meeting the Quraysh instead of the caravan. Twice they answered that they had come for a caravan, with no armour and no supplies. The Qur'an records this reluctance, yet still calls them nothing but believers. The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA went scouting themselves. They met an old Bedouin and got from him the exact positions of both the Muslims and the Quraysh. All they told him about themselves was that they were "from water". Then two water carriers of the Quraysh were caught. When the boys said they were from the army, the Companions beat them. The beating went on until the boys said they were from the caravan. The Prophet ﷺ finished his prayer and told the Companions that they had beaten the boys for telling the truth, and let the lie stand. He asked the boys how many camels the Quraysh slaughtered each day. They said nine or ten, and he said the army was nine hundred to a thousand strong. The boys then named its leading men, Utbah, Shaybah, Abu Jahl and Umayyah. The Prophet ﷺ told the Companions that Makkah had thrown them the pieces of its liver. He also pointed to the places on the ground where each of those men would fall. Earlier, at Dhafiran, news had come that the Quraysh had marched, and he had asked the army for its advice. Abu Bakr spoke and sat down. Umar RA spoke and sat down. Then al-Miqdad said that they would not speak as the Children of Israel had spoken to Musa. Instead they would fight at his right and his left, in front of him and behind him. Still the Prophet ﷺ asked again. At last Sa'd ibn Mu'adh understood that he was waiting to hear from the Ansar. In Muslim's report it was Sa'd ibn Ubadah. The Ansar's pledge at Aqaba had been to defend him in Madinah, not to march out to war. Sa'd told him to go wherever he wished. If he rode them into the sea, they would follow him, and perhaps Allah would show him through them something to comfort his eyes. The Prophet ﷺ was delighted. He told them to go forward, because Allah had promised him one of the two parties. It was as though he could already see the enemy lying slain. The Muslims reached the water of Badr before the Quraysh. Al-Hubab ibn al-Mundhir RA asked whether this campsite had been chosen by revelation, or was simply a soldier's choice. He was told it was a soldier's choice. So he proposed camping beyond the wells, so that the water lay behind the Muslims and the enemy had only what they carried. The Prophet ﷺ took his advice. The other wells were stopped up, and a cistern was built and filled for the Muslims. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh had a shelter built, from which the Prophet ﷺ could watch the field. That night a light rain fell. It firmed the sand on the Muslim side and, by some reports, drenched the Quraysh. Ali said that all the Companions slept except the Prophet ﷺ. He prayed under a tree until dawn: "O Allah, if this band perishes, You will not be worshipped on earth." While he dozed, he was shown the enemy as few in number. The Qur'an says that this spared the Muslims from quarrelling and despair. At dawn on the 17th he drew the army up in ranks. He straightened the lines with an arrow in his hand. When he prodded Suwad RA in the belly, Suwad demanded his right to retaliate. The Prophet ﷺ bared his own stomach, and Suwad kissed it. Suwad said that if he was to die, he wanted his skin to have touched the Prophet ﷺ's. He had given the flag to Mus'ab ibn Umayr RA. Two black banners were carried, one by Ali and one by a man of the Ansar. He put Qays ibn Abi Sa'sa'a RA in charge of the rearguard. He also ordered that certain men were not to be killed. These were al-Abbas and the Banu Hashim who had been dragged out to fight, and Abu al-Bukhturi, who had helped to break the boycott. Across the plain the Prophet ﷺ saw a man on a red camel riding up and down the lines of the Quraysh. He said that if there was any good in them, it was in that man. The man was Utbah. He was offering to pay the blood money for Amr al-Hadrami, the man killed at Nakhla. He pleaded with the Quraysh not to kill their own sons and brothers, but to leave Muhammad ﷺ to the other Arabs. Hakim ibn Hizam carried the offer to Abu Jahl. Abu Jahl mocked Hakim as Utbah's errand boy. He stirred up al-Hadrami's brother, and called Utbah a coward who had lost his nerve at the sight of the Muslims. Utbah had told them they could blame him for cowardice, but he could not bear to hear it from Abu Jahl. He called for his brother and his son. The Quraysh scout Umayr ibn Wahab reported three hundred men with nothing but their swords. He warned that not one of them would die without taking a man of the Quraysh with him. By one report, Abu Jahl told him that no one had asked his opinion. As the armies closed in, Abu Jahl prayed aloud. He asked Allah to destroy whichever army had cut the ties of kinship and brought a strange religion. It was another prayer against himself. Al-Aswad ibn Abd al-Asad swore to drink from the Muslims' cistern or die trying. Hamzah RA cut him down at the water. He was the first man killed at Badr. Then Utbah, Shaybah and al-Walid ibn Utbah stepped out and called for champions to face them. Three young men of the Ansar answered. They were Awf and Muawwidh, the sons of Afra', and Abdullah ibn Rawahah RA. The Quraysh waved them away. They said they had no quarrel with them, and asked for their equals instead. So the Prophet ﷺ sent Ubaydah ibn al-Harith RA, Hamzah and Ali. In Ibn Ishaq's account, Hamzah and Ali killed Shaybah and al-Walid at once. Ubaydah and Utbah struck each other down, and Utbah cut off Ubaydah's leg. Then the other two turned and killed Utbah. Ali RA's own report in Abu Dawud pairs them differently. In it Hamzah faced Utbah, Ali faced Shaybah, and Ubaydah and al-Walid wounded each other. Ubaydah died of his wound at al-Safra on the way home. This duel is the Qur'an's "two adversaries who dispute about their Lord". The Prophet ﷺ faced the qibla and raised his hands to the sky. He pleaded for the help he had been promised, until his cloak fell from his shoulders. Abu Bakr put it back on him. He told him that it was enough, and that his Lord would give what He had promised. According to Muslim, Allah then revealed that He would help them with a thousand angels. Ibn Ishaq says that the Prophet ﷺ dozed in the shelter and then woke. He told Abu Bakr to be of good cheer. He said that Jibril was there, holding a horse by the rein and leading it, with dust on his front teeth. A thousand angels were coming in file. The Prophet ﷺ recited the verse "the host will be routed and turn their backs". Umar is reported to have said that he had not understood this verse until that morning. Then the Prophet ﷺ took up a handful of pebbles. He threw them at the Quraysh, saying "may these faces be disfigured". By reports in the tafsir, every one of them got grit in his eyes. The Qur'an says that it was not he who threw, but Allah. What happened next can only be told through the dozen stories the Companions left behind. The Prophet ﷺ called on them to rise up to a Paradise as wide as the heavens and the earth. Umayr ibn al-Humam RA was chewing dates at the time. He said that if he lived long enough to finish them, that would be too long a life. He threw them down and fought until he was killed. The Muslims held back their arrows until the enemy was in range. They kept their swords sheathed until the enemy was upon them. Ali said that the Prophet ﷺ was the closest of them all to the enemy. By another report, Ali said he found the Prophet ﷺ three times in his shelter, in prostration, crying "O Living, O Sustaining", with Abu Bakr at his side. The Prophet ﷺ moved between the two. Iblis saw the angels and ran. Al-Harith ibn Hisham grabbed at the man he took for Suraqa, and was thrown onto his back. A mursal report in the Muwatta' tells what the Prophet ﷺ said about this. Satan is never more humiliated than on the day of Arafah, he said, except for what Satan was shown on the day of Badr. On that day he saw Jibril arranging the angels in ranks. Some Companions heard a rider above them urging on his horse, Haizum. They saw the pagan in front of them lose his head before their own blow landed. The man who captured al-Abbas was a slightly built man of the Ansar. Al-Abbas insisted that he had been taken by a handsome horseman on a piebald horse. The Prophet ﷺ told the Ansari to be quiet, because an angel had helped him. By one report the angels wore yellow turbans like Zubayr's, while Ibn Ishaq's report from Ibn Abbas RA says their turbans were white. Ukasha ibn Mihsan RA broke his sword. He was handed a stick of wood, and found a blade in his hand. By a report with a broken chain, Abu Ubaydah RA kept away from his father, Abdullah ibn al-Jarrah. In the end the old man came at him, and Abu Ubaydah killed him. The closing verse of Surah al-Mujadilah came down about him. It says that no believer loves those who fight Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, even if they are his father. Abu al-Bukhturi refused to be taken prisoner without his friend. He was killed by a man of the Ansar who had tried to spare him. The three men of the duel were the father, uncle and brother of Abu Hudhayfah RA. He said aloud that the Muslims were killing their own kin while the Prophet ﷺ's uncle went untouched. He regretted those words until he died at Yamamah. Two boys of the Ansar had each asked Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA to point out Abu Jahl. One was Mu'adh ibn Amr ibn al-Jumuh RA. The other was a son of Afra', called Mu'adh in al-Bukhari and Muawwidh in Ibn Ishaq. When Abd al-Rahman pointed him out, the boys went through the crowd like hawks. Mu'adh leapt and cut off Abu Jahl's leg. It cost him his own arm to Ikrimah's sword, so he tore the arm off and fought on without it. Muawwidh struck the second blow. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud RA was the shepherd whom Abu Jahl had despised. He found Abu Jahl dying and put a foot on his neck. To the end, Abu Jahl said that a man killed by his own people was not disgraced, and that Ibn Mas'ud was standing on a high place. Ibn Mas'ud's own sword had been blunted by the day's fighting, so he took Abu Jahl's sword and finished him with it. By a report with a weak chain in Ahmad, the Prophet ﷺ made Ibn Mas'ud swear three times before going to look for himself. He called Abu Jahl the Pharaoh of this community. Umayyah ibn Khalaf begged his old friend Abd al-Rahman to take him and his son prisoner. He said he was worth more than the coats of mail Abd al-Rahman was carrying. Then Bilal RA saw the man who had tortured him on the sand of Makkah. He called out to the Ansar, and Umayyah and his son died under their spears. Abd al-Rahman was wounded in the foot trying to shield them. Umayyah's body was the only one that could not be moved to the well. It came apart when they lifted it, so they covered it with stones where it lay. Seventy of the Quraysh were dead and about seventy were taken prisoner. That was one man in seven of their army. Fourteen or fifteen Muslims had been killed, and none were taken. The Quraysh fled by the one road the Muslims had left open. The Prophet ﷺ stayed on the field for three days, to bury the martyrs and to make it plain who had won. The Quraysh dead, all except Umayyah, were thrown into a dry well and covered over. On the third day, before leaving, the Prophet ﷺ stood at the mouth of the well. He called the dead by name, Utbah, Shaybah, al-Walid, Abu Jahl and Umayyah. He asked whether they had found their Lord's promise true, for he had found his Lord's promise true. Umar asked how he could speak to bodies without souls. He answered that they heard him no worse than the living did, though they could not reply. While still on the field, the Companions had already started arguing over the spoils. The men who gathered the spoils, the men who chased the enemy and the Prophet ﷺ's bodyguard each claimed the better right. Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA asked for the sword he had won. Then the opening verses of Surah al-Anfal came down there, saying that the spoils belong to Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. Every man received an equal share. Shares also went to some who had been kept away on duty. Among them was Uthman RA, who was nursing his dying wife Ruqayyah. Looking over the prisoners, the Prophet ﷺ spoke of Mut'im ibn Adi, who had recently died. He said that if Mut'im had asked him for these prisoners, he would have freed every one of them. This was because of the shelter Mut'im had given him after Ta'if. Abu Bakr advised taking ransom, since the prisoners were their kin. Umar advised giving each Companion his own kinsman to kill. The Prophet ﷺ compared the first to Ibrahim and Isa, and the second to Nuh and Musa. He chose ransom. The next day Umar found him and Abu Bakr weeping under a tree, because of verses that had come down. The verses said that no prophet should take captives before he has subdued the land. They also said that but for a prior decree, a punishment would have touched them. Two prisoners were executed on the road home. One was al-Nadr ibn al-Harith, who had mocked the Qur'an as old fables that he could improve on. The other was Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt. Uqba asked who would look after his children, and the answer he was given was the Fire. Their execution was the only time captives of Badr were put to death. Zayd ibn Harithah RA carried the news to Lower Madinah, naming the dead one by one. Abdullah ibn Rawahah RA took it to Upper Madinah. By some reports Zayd was riding the Prophet ﷺ's own camel, and people thought he was mad. Abdullah ibn Ubayy heard him and said that the matter was now settled. The hypocrisy of Madinah dates from that day. Uthman heard the shouting just as he finished burying Ruqayyah. The prisoners were lodged with the men who had captured them. The captors were ordered to treat them well. They gave the prisoners their bread, and ate dates themselves. Suhayl ibn Amr was kept in the Prophet ﷺ's own house. There Sawda RA saw the chief of the Quraysh tied up in a corner, and cried out that he should have died a noble death. When the Prophet ﷺ rebuked her, she said she could not contain herself. Each man's ransom was set according to his means. The poor were freed for nothing. According to Ahmad, some who had nothing to pay with were freed for teaching the children of the Ansar to write. Al-Abbas protested that he was a Muslim. He was told that Allah knew his heart, but he had fought. Then he was told where he and Umm al-Fadl had set money aside when no one else was present. So he paid for himself, and for Aqil and Nawfal too. By one report, he used to say that Allah had given him twenty merchants in return for those twenty ounces. Abu Sufyan refused to pay for his son Amr, having already lost another son on the field. Later he kidnapped an old Ansari pilgrim in Makkah to force an exchange. Abu al-As ibn al-Rabi' was ransomed with a necklace. Khadija RA had given it to her daughter Zaynab RA as a wedding gift. When the Prophet ﷺ saw it, his face changed. At his word the captors returned it, and Abu al-As went home on his promise to send Zaynab to Madinah. In Makkah, the first survivor to arrive was al-Haysaman al-Khuza'i. He listed so many dead nobles that Safwan ibn Umayyah tested him by asking about himself. Al-Haysaman told him that he had watched Safwan's father and brother die. The Quraysh banned wailing for the dead, so that the Muslims would take no pleasure in it. Al-Aswad ibn al-Muttalib, who had lost three sons, was overjoyed to hear a woman wailing. Then he learned that she was weeping for a camel. Abu Lahab heard from his nephew, Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith, about men in white on piebald horses whom no one could withstand. Al-Abbas's slave Abu Rafi' said they were angels, and Abu Lahab beat him for it. Then Umm al-Fadl split Abu Lahab's head open with a tent pole. Within days he died of a foul sickness. According to a report in al-Tirmidhi, on the same day, far away, Rome defeated Persia, as Surah al-Rum had foretold. Years earlier, Abu Bakr had made a bet with a Makkan, Ubay ibn Khalaf, that this would happen within six years. The six years had passed, so Abu Bakr had already lost the bet. Within weeks, Umayr ibn Wahab came to Madinah with a poisoned sword to kill the Prophet ﷺ, and went home a Muslim. The Banu Qaynuqa told the Prophet ﷺ that he had beaten only men who knew nothing of war. They were besieged and sent out of Madinah. Jibril asked how the Muslims regarded those who had fought at Badr. He was told that they were the best of the Muslims. Jibril said that the angels regard the angels who were there in the same way.

After the Muslim victory at Badr, Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf travelled secretly to Makkah with some men of his tribe, the Banu Nadir. There they made an alliance with Abu Sufyan, the leader of Makkah, against the Prophet ﷺ. The books of seerah do not record the terms of this alliance. It is also reported that near the end of the meeting, Abu Sufyan asked Ka'b, by Allah, whether the religion of the Quraysh or the religion of Muhammad ﷺ was closer and more beloved to Allah. Ka'b answered that the Quraysh were more rightly guided.

At first, Allah commanded the Prophet ﷺ to pray facing Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem), and he did so throughout his time in Makkah. Some books report that he would stand so that the Ka'bah was also in front of him, a kind of "double qibla." The qibla is the direction Muslims face in prayer. After he emigrated to Madinah, this was no longer possible. Madinah lies due north of Makkah, and Bayt al-Maqdis lies further north still. So to face Jerusalem from Madinah, he had to turn his back to the Ka'bah. When he first arrived, the Prophet ﷺ was hopeful about the Jews of Madinah. They believed in the same God and the same line of prophets, and in Paradise, Hell and the Day of Judgment. Their chief rabbi, Abdullah ibn Salam RA, had even accepted Islam. But as the Jews began to show open hostility, the Prophet ﷺ began to wish that he could face Makkah instead. He could not change the qibla by his own choice. It is narrated that he once said to Jibril AS, "O Jibril, I wish to pray facing Makkah." Jibril AS replied that he was only a servant who came by Allah's command, and that the Prophet ﷺ should ask Allah through du'a. So the Prophet ﷺ began to make du'a earnestly, by night and by day. He even looked up to the sky as he prayed, something he did only at times of great distress. Allah then revealed Qur'an 2:144, which told him to turn towards Masjid al-Haram in Makkah. Further verses on the change followed, and they now open the second juz (part) of the Qur'an. The change confused the Jews, some Muslims and the pagans of Makkah alike. This was the first time Allah had replaced one ruling with another, a concept called abrogation (naskh), so the idea itself was new. Some of the Jews openly mocked the change. Allah answered that true piety is not about which direction a person faces (2:177). He also told the Prophet ﷺ that no amount of proof would make the People of the Book follow the Muslims' qibla, and that the Muslims would not follow theirs (2:145). The Companions also asked about those who had died while praying towards Bayt al-Maqdis. They wanted to know whether those prayers would be accepted. Allah revealed that He would never let their faith go to waste (2:143). Imam Bukhari later pointed out that in this verse Allah called their prayer "faith." Scholars used it as evidence that prayer (salah) cannot be separated from faith (iman).

Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf had an Arab father and a Jewish mother. His father was an Arab of the Banu Nabhan who had killed a man among his own people and had to flee. The Banu Nadir of Yathrib took him in. Ka'b's mother was from the Banu Nadir, and by Jewish reckoning this made him a Jew. So he had an Arab's family line and the learning of the Banu Nadir. He grew up to be one of the tribe's leaders. He was rich enough to own a fortress of his own, and he was famous for his good looks and his poetry. His hostility to Islam began early. When the qibla was changed, it was Ka'b who asked what had turned the Muslims away from the direction they used to pray towards. The Qur'an answers his question. When zakat was made obligatory, he went to his friends among the Ansar. He told them not to give their money away, because no one knew what would become of this man. A verse came down about this, speaking of those who are stingy and who urge others to be stingy too. Messengers came into Madinah shouting the news of Badr. Ka'b said that if Muhammad ﷺ had really killed those men, the noblest of the Arabs, then it was better to be under the earth than on it. As it turned out, he had passed a verdict on himself. Then Ka'b went to Makkah with some of the Banu Nadir. There he made a pact with Abu Sufyan against the Prophet ﷺ. No book records the terms of the pact. The sources keep only one exchange. Abu Sufyan asked which side was better guided, the Quraysh or Muhammad ﷺ. Ka'b answered that the Quraysh were. Surah al-Nisa quotes this answer back at him. Ka'b came home believing the alliance was a secret, but Allah had told the Prophet ﷺ about it. Ka'b had long written poems against the Muslims. The last straw was a set of mocking love poems about Muslim women, in which he named them. The sources disagree about when the next part happened. Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham and al-Waqidi place it between Badr and Uhud. Muqatil, al-Baghawi and al-Salihi place it after Uhud. They add that Ka'b was the mind behind the Banu Nadir's plot to poison the Prophet ﷺ, and that he died the night before the plot was to be carried out. The Prophet ﷺ stood up and asked who would deal with Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, who had transgressed against Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. Muhammad ibn Maslamah stood up. He was from the Aws. Before Islam the Aws had been allies of the Banu Nadir and had no old feud with them. So if a man of the Aws did the killing, it would not reopen the old pre-Islamic quarrel between the Banu Nadir and the Khazraj. For three days afterwards, Ibn Maslamah neither ate nor drank. The Prophet ﷺ was told, and came to ask him what was wrong. Ibn Maslamah explained that he had promised something he was not sure he could do. The Prophet ﷺ told him simply to try. Ibn Maslamah then asked permission to say things he did not mean. The Prophet ﷺ told him to say whatever he liked. Ibn Maslamah went to Ka'b during his business hours and took him aside. He complained that this man had brought nothing but trouble on them. He said he had turned the Arabs against them, and was now asking them for their money. Ka'b was delighted, and told him that things would get even worse. Ibn Maslamah said that since they had followed this man, they could not abandon him until things changed. Then he asked Ka'b for a loan, to pay what was being demanded of him. Ka'b made his living by lending money, and he wanted something as security. He suggested the women of Ibn Maslamah's household, or his sons. Ibn Maslamah replied that no one would trust a woman near the handsomest man in Yathrib. As for his sons, they would be mocked all their lives for having been pledged as security by their father. He offered his weapons instead, and Ka'b gladly accepted. Silkan ibn Salama, known as Abu Na'ila, was Ka'b's foster-brother. He and one or two others took loans on the same terms. Now they could come to Ka'b's fortress carrying weapons, and he would be expecting them. Abu Na'ila set a night for the visit. By al-Waqidi's reckoning it was the 14th of Rabi' al-Awwal in the third year. The sky was cloudless and the moon was full. The Prophet ﷺ walked with them as far as Baqi' al-Gharqad. He sent them on their way with a prayer for their success. Ka'b's fortress was on the edge of the city. When they arrived, they called to him to come down. He had recently married a new wife, and she tried to hold him back. She asked why these men were coming at such an hour, when he was a man at war. Ka'b answered that Abu Na'ila was his foster-brother and Ibn Maslamah was an old friend, and he went down. They walked and talked in the moonlight. Then Abu Na'ila commented on the perfume Ka'b was wearing. Ka'b told him it came from the most fragrant woman in Arabia. Abu Na'ila asked if he could smell his hair. Ka'b bent his head. Ibn Maslamah seized it, and the others struck. Because of the armour Ka'b was wearing, it was slow work. In the dark, al-Harith ibn Aws was badly cut by his own companions' swords, and he limped back bleeding. When they reached the Prophet ﷺ, he put his saliva on the wound and it closed. The other tribes complained, but the Prophet ﷺ did nothing about it, because he had ordered the killing himself. Ibn Ishaq says that after that night no enemy of the Muslims felt safe. Sh. Yasir Qadhi stresses that this was a political act by the ruler and judge of Madinah. It was taken against a man who had broken the Constitution of Madinah by making a pact with the Quraysh, and who had crossed every line in his poetry. Even Ka'b's own wife understood the danger he was living under. In his view, the act should not be judged by the customs of a later age.

In Safar of 4 AH, the Muslims suffered two massacres, at al-Raji and at Bir Ma'una. Amr ibn Umayyah RA, the only survivor of Bir Ma'una, killed two men on his way home, thinking they belonged to the guilty tribe. In fact they were innocent, so the Prophet ﷺ agreed to pay their blood money. This came to 200 camels, a huge sum. Under the Constitution of Madinah, a burden that fell on the whole city was to be shared by all its tribes. The Banu Nadir were a wealthy Jewish tribe living south of Madinah. Relations with them were already tense. The Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq reports that some of them had plotted to murder the People of the Suffa, a group of companions devoted to learning, but the plot was exposed in time. Musa ibn Uqba, an early historian, records that they had helped the Quraysh at the Battle of Uhud with supplies and knowledge of the land. One of their chieftains, Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, had also been killed for his open hostility to the Muslims. Even so, the Prophet ﷺ went to the Banu Nadir with Abu Bakr RA, Umar RA and others to ask for their share of the blood money. The leaders welcomed them and asked them to wait outside their fortress while they went inside. According to one report, they said they wanted to prepare a feast for their guests. Inside, one leader suggested dropping a rock from the top of the wall onto the Prophet ﷺ. Another warned that this would cause a serious backlash, but in the end the plan was approved. Before they could carry it out, the Prophet ﷺ suddenly stood up and walked back to Madinah without saying a word. His companions did not understand why he had left. They waited a long time for him to return, and finally went back to Madinah themselves. There the Prophet ﷺ explained that Jibril AS had come to him and told him to get up and leave at once.

The Banu Nadir were one of the Jewish tribes of Madinah. When the Prophet ﷺ visited them, some of their leaders plotted to kill him by dropping a rock on him while he waited outside their fortress. After he learned of the plot, he sent Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA to them with an ultimatum. They had ten days to leave Madinah, and anyone still found there after that would be put to death. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul was a powerful chieftain among the Arabs of Madinah, the Aws and Khazraj, and an old ally of the Banu Nadir. He secretly sent them a message promising his full support. He said 2,000 of his allies from Ghatafan would come to defend them. He vowed to fight alongside them, or to go into exile with them if they were expelled. The Banu Nadir argued among themselves about what to do. Their chieftain Huyayy ibn Akhtab trusted Ibn Ubayy's promises and wanted to stand firm. Many of his people disagreed, but Huyayy won the argument. They sent word to the Prophet ﷺ that they would stay. That same day, the Prophet ﷺ marched about 700 Muslims to their fortresses and laid siege to them. During the siege, the Prophet ﷺ went with most of his men to the Banu Qurayza, another Jewish tribe of Madinah. He asked them to renew their oaths under the Constitution of Madinah. They agreed to keep the treaty and not to help the Banu Nadir. Meanwhile, Abdullah ibn Ubayy never sent any help. The siege lasted seven to ten days, without any real fighting. To break the Banu Nadir's resolve, the Prophet ﷺ had some of their prized date palms cut down and burned. This distressed them greatly. It also troubled some of the Companions, until the Qur'an confirmed that it had been done by Allah's will. With no help coming, the Banu Nadir surrendered unconditionally. The Prophet ﷺ spared their lives and let them go into exile with as much as their camels could carry. The only thing they could not take was weapons. Out of spite, many of them hacked down their own houses rather than leave them for the Muslims. Two or three of them accepted Islam and were allowed to stay with their property. The land, orchards and goods left behind were fay', property gained without fighting. The Prophet ﷺ gave it mainly to the emigrants from Makkah (the Muhajirun) who had no land. Until then the Ansar of Madinah had been supporting them, so this made the two groups more equal. According to Ibn Ishaq, three landless men of the Ansar who had fought in several battles also received a share.

The Muslims had only just returned home from Khandaq, and the Prophet ﷺ had barely set down his sword, when Jibril AS arrived. Jibril said that the angels had not yet put their swords down. He brought Allah's command to march on the Banu Qurayza at once. The Prophet ﷺ sent a crier through Madinah to announce, "Whoever hears must obey! And nobody is allowed to pray Asr except at Banu Qurayza!" The sahaba set out in groups, and some of them were caught by sunset before they arrived. They could not agree whether the order meant they should hurry or should be taken literally. Some prayed Asr where they were. Others delayed it until they reached the Banu Qurayza, and so missed its time. When the Prophet ﷺ was told about this on their arrival, he criticised neither group. A report that he said "both of you have done correctly" is not authentic. But his silence itself became a foundational example for later scholars. It showed how equally qualified mujtahids, scholars able to reason out rulings for themselves, may reach different conclusions without either being blameworthy. This holds even when the conclusions exclude each other, and even though only one of them can match the truth in Allah's sight. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA was the first to reach the massive fortress of the Banu Qurayza. He planted the Prophet ﷺ's flag outside it. The Banu Qurayza were shouting insults at the Prophet ﷺ from the walls. When he arrived, Ali RA tried to steer him away so that he would not hear them. But the Prophet ﷺ set up his camp directly in front of the fortress anyway. He called out, "O group of the Jews! Didn't Allah humiliate you? Hasn't Allah's anger come upon you?" He then called on them to surrender, and they refused. The siege lasted 25 days. Two leaders were inside the fortress. One was Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the exiled leader of the Banu Nadir. He had chosen to stay and face their fate rather than risk the anger of Abu Sufyan. The other was Ka'b ibn Asad, the chieftain of the Banu Qurayza. As their supplies ran low, Ka'b ibn Asad put three choices to his people, one after another. The first was to accept the Prophet ﷺ's message. They all knew, and none of them denied, that he was the very messenger foretold in their own scripture. The second was to kill their own families and make one desperate final attack. The third was to break their own Sabbath and launch a surprise attack on a Saturday. His people refused all three. They refused the last one because they believed Allah would punish them for breaking the Sabbath. Ka'b despaired of them ever making a decision. Twice the Banu Qurayza sent messengers offering to leave with their wealth, as the Banu Nadir had been allowed to do. The Prophet ﷺ refused both offers. He would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender. On the 25th day the Banu Qurayza surrendered. The Aws had been allies of the Banu Qurayza since Jahiliyyah, the time before Islam. They pleaded with the Prophet ﷺ to be as merciful to their ally as he had been to the ally of the Khazraj, the Banu Qaynuqa. The Prophet ﷺ asked the Aws whether they would accept one of their own as judge. When they agreed, he named Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, their own leader, who was dying of the wound he had received at Khandaq. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA was carried to the fortress on a mule. All the way there, the Aws pressed him to show mercy. When he arrived, he gave his judgment. The fighting men were to be executed, their property was to be distributed, and their women and children were to be taken captive. The Prophet ﷺ declared that Sa'd had given the very judgment of Allah from above the seven heavens. Trenches were dug on land that belonged to a woman of the Banu Najjar. The men of the Banu Qurayza were executed there in groups. The Seerah sources vary widely on how many died. Ibn Ishaq, the most authoritative of them, gives 600 to 700, and notes that some exaggerate the number to 800 or 900. A hadith in Musnad Imam Ahmad gives around 400. No children were executed. Only one woman was put to death. During the siege she had killed a Muslim by dropping a grinding stone on him from the fortress wall. Some of the Banu Qurayza had already embraced Islam, and they were spared. So was anyone a Muslim vouched for because he owed that man a personal debt of honour. A great deal of booty was taken. According to one report, it included some 1,500 swords, 1,500 shields, 2,000 spears, 300 suits of armour, and large numbers of livestock. According to one version, it was around this time that the shares of ghanima, the spoils of war, were fixed. A rider on horseback received three shares, one for his mount and two for himself. A man on foot received one. A fifth was reserved for the Islamic state, as Surah al-Anfal sets out.

"Khandaq" means "the trench", and "Ahzab" means "the confederates". The confederates were the coalition of tribes that marched on Madinah in the fifth year after the Hijrah. The whole affair, from the first spade in the ground to the flight of the confederates, lasted around forty days. That was a week or so of digging and close to a month of siege. Even the date of the battle is a matter of scholarly disagreement. Abdullah ibn Umar RA said that he was fourteen at Uhud and was turned away, and that he was fifteen at Khandaq and was allowed through. This led al-Bukhari, al-Zuhri, al-Nawawi and Ibn Hazm to place the battle in 4 AH. However, Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, al-Tabari and the specialists of the Seerah place it in Shawwal 5 AH. Their reasoning is that the fourth year was taken up by Badr al-Maw'id, and that Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA is agreed to have died right after Khandaq, in the fifth year. Al-Waqidi and Ibn Sa'd give the month as Dhu al-Qa'dah rather than Shawwal. The instigators were the Banu al-Nadir. They had tried to kill the Prophet ﷺ with a rock. After that they were expelled from Madinah and allowed to take only what their camels could carry. They settled in Khaybar, but they still wanted their date groves back. A delegation of their leaders, among them Sallam ibn Abi al-Huqayq and Huyayy ibn Akhtab, went to the Quraysh in Makkah. They proposed a joint attack and offered money and food on top. The Quraysh seized on the idea. Their trade route to Syria had been all but destroyed, and they had failed to show up at Badr al-Maw'id. Abu Sufyan asked the Jewish delegation which religion was closer to their own, that of the Quraysh or that of Muhammad ﷺ. The delegation answered that the pagans were the better guided. The Qur'an quoted their answer back to them in 4:51. With the Quraysh on board, the Banu al-Nadir turned to the Ghatafan, the largest tribe of the north. The Ghatafan had no trade route at stake, so they had to be paid. The price was half of Khaybar's produce for a year, in return for a single battle. The Quraysh, for their part, called in the smaller tribes that had been hurt by the loss of the caravan road. These included the Banu Asad, the Banu Sulaym, the Banu Murrah, Ashja', Kinana and others. Each of them sent men, horses or weapons. Ibn Sa'd counts around 4,000 men and 300 horses from the Quraysh alone. To these he adds 700 from the Banu Sulaym, 1,000 from the Banu Fizara, 400 each from Ashja' and the Banu Murrah, and 700 from the Banu Asad. Ibn Ishaq puts the whole force at some 10,000 men. Against them, the Muslims had at most 2,500 fighting men. Abu Sufyan was the senior commander, but there was no single leader over the whole army, and this weakness would prove fatal. Never before had ten or fifteen Arab tribes marched together under one banner. Arabia was dividing into two camps, the banner of Islam and the banner of disbelief. An army that size cannot gather in secret. When the news reached the Prophet ﷺ, he consulted the Companions, as he had done before Badr and Uhud. Salman al-Farisi RA had recently been freed, and this was his first battle. He proposed a tactic the Arabs had never seen. He explained that back in Persia, people would dig a trench and shelter behind it. The Prophet ﷺ accepted the idea at once. According to Ibn Sa'd, he himself drew the lines to show where the trench should run. According to Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet ﷺ also had the women and children taken up into the forts. One of these was the fort of the Banu Harithah, one of the strongest in Madinah. He was already thinking several steps ahead. Every man would be out on the perimeter, yet the Banu Qurayza still lived inside Madinah, at al-Awali. They had renewed their covenant three times, most recently only months earlier during the Banu al-Nadir affair. Even so, no one could be sure where their loyalty lay. If they turned, the Muslims would be caught between two fronts. The Prophet ﷺ assigned ten men to each stretch of the trench. Its exact course is unknown. The most careful modern estimates put it at around two kilometres long, ten to thirteen feet wide and seven to nine cubits deep. It cut across the one open approach to the city, from the north. Lava fields to the east and west and dense palm groves to the south already made Madinah impassable to an army from those sides. Ibn Sa'd says the digging took six days, while others say a fortnight. It was done by hand, without slaves or machines, in the cold of winter. The men were hungry from the start. Al-Bukhari records that they ate barley mixed with rancid oil. According to Jabir ibn Abdillah RA, they sometimes ate date stones. Anas ibn Malik RA remembered the Prophet ﷺ coming out to the trench on a cold evening and praying for the Ansar and the Muhajirun. Al-Bara' ibn Azib RA remembered him carrying earth until the dust covered his chest. He chanted a rajaz, a short rhythmic verse, together with the men. It ended with the words "when they want fitna, we refuse, we refuse", and every voice rose on the refrain. Jabir saw a stone tied against the Prophet ﷺ's stomach to dull his hunger. Jabir slaughtered the one small goat he owned. The Prophet ﷺ announced the meal to everyone and blessed it. Jabir then watched a pot meant for a handful of people feed the whole trench, around a thousand men, ten at a time. At one point a boulder on the marked line would not break. The Prophet ﷺ took the pickaxe himself and struck it three times, and each strike was greeted with a takbir. He told the men that he had been shown the red palaces of al-Sham, the white pillars of al-Mada'in in Persia and the gates of Sana'a in Yemen. These were three lands the Muslims would conquer within a generation. He also watched Ammar ibn Yasir RA doing the work of two men. He repeated a prophecy he had first made while building the mosque, that the transgressing party would kill Ammar. It was fulfilled decades later at Siffin. The confederates arrived to find a ditch they could not charge across. So they made camp and settled in to starve the city out. Their commanders included Abu Sufyan, Uyaynah ibn Hisn of the Banu Fizara, and Tulayha al-Asadi of the Banu Asad. Uyaynah was a chieftain so coarse that he had once barged into the Prophet ﷺ's house without asking permission. Tulayha would later claim prophethood, and later still he would die a martyr for Islam at al-Qadisiyyah. The Ghatafan were not eager to fight. They sent an envoy to the Muslims with an offer. They said they would go home if the Muslims gave them a third of Madinah's dates. In Ibn Ishaq's version, the offer came the other way. He says that the Prophet ﷺ sent word to the Ghatafan leaders, Uyaynah and al-Harith ibn Awf, and that a document was drafted but never signed. The Prophet ﷺ consulted Sa'd ibn Mu'adh and Sa'd ibn Ubadah RA, the leaders of the Aws and the Khazraj. They asked him whether this was something Allah had ordered, or something he was doing for their sake. He said it was for their sake, because the Arabs had united against them. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh replied that back when they were idolaters, these people had never eaten a date of theirs except as guests or by buying it. Now that Allah had honoured them with Islam, he said, they would give them nothing but the sword. The Prophet ﷺ was pleased with their answer, and the Ghatafan were sent away with nothing. In Ibn Ishaq's version, Sa'd erased the document himself. Ibn Sa'd dates the Prophet ﷺ's move from his house to a tent by the trench to 8 Dhu al-Qa'dah. The Muslims camped facing the ditch, with their backs to Jabal Sila', and were divided into shifts. All night, patrols walked the line shouting the takbir, so that anyone approaching would think it was heavily manned. The Prophet ﷺ took his own turn on watch. Umm Salama RA witnessed al-Muraysi', Khaybar, Hudaybiyyah, the Conquest and Hunayn. She is reported to have said that none of them was as exhausting or as frightening as Khandaq. There is also a story of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas RA coming by night in his armour to guard the Prophet ﷺ, so that he could sleep. It is sometimes told as part of the siege. However, Aisha RA's report in al-Bukhari places it on a night after his arrival in Madinah. Then came the blow that changed everything. Huyayy ibn Akhtab slipped into Madinah, a city he had known all his life. He made for the fortress of the Banu Qurayza and their chieftain, Ka'b ibn Asad. At first Ka'b barred the door against him. He said he had a treaty with Muhammad ﷺ and had seen nothing from him but truthfulness. Huyayy shamed him into opening it by accusing him of not wanting to share his food. Huyayy then pressed Ka'b all through the night with promises of oceans of men. He swore that if the confederates left, he would share whatever fate befell the Banu Qurayza. Ka'b told him that he was like a cloud that promised rain but brought only thunder and lightning. Even so, by morning Ka'b had given way, and he tore up the covenant. The Prophet ﷺ sensed that something was wrong and asked for a volunteer to find out. Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA went. It was on this occasion that the Prophet ﷺ said that every prophet has a disciple, and that his disciple was Zubayr. Zubayr came back convinced that the Banu Qurayza had broken the treaty. But a war is not fought on presumption. So the Prophet ﷺ sent the four Ansar leaders who had been closest to the Banu Qurayza in the old days. They were Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, Sa'd ibn Ubadah, Abdullah ibn Rawahah RA and Khawwat ibn Jubayr RA. He told them that if there had been treachery, they should signal it indirectly, so as not to spread panic. If the treaty still held, they should announce it aloud. The four found the Banu Qurayza foul-mouthed and defiant. The Banu Qurayza denied that there was any Messenger of Allah ﷺ or any treaty. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, a man with a temper, cursed them, and they cursed him back, until Sa'd ibn Ubadah pulled him away. The envoys brought back a report of just two words, "Adl and al-Qarah". These were the tribes behind the treachery of al-Raji. The Prophet ﷺ answered, "Allahu akbar, good news!" It was a double-edged phrase, and it kept the camp calm. The news spread anyway. The Companions called it the worst night of their lives. There were ten thousand enemies outside the trench and two thousand more inside the city, and their families were in an unguarded fortress. The Qur'an describes that time in 33:10 and 33:11. It says that the enemy came from above them and from below them, that eyes rolled in terror and hearts rose into throats, and that the believers were shaken violently. According to a report not found in Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet ﷺ split his thin patrol. He sent Zayd ibn Harithah RA and Salama ibn Aslam RA with a small group to guard the forts. Around this time, the Banu Qurayza sent scouts to test whether the fortress was defended. Safiyyah bint Abdul Muttalib killed one of them with her own hands. This was the defence of al-Fari'. Meanwhile, the hypocrites asked permission to go home to "protect their families". One of them mocked aloud that Muhammad ﷺ had promised them the treasures of Khosrow and Caesar, yet now none of them dared to go out to relieve himself. For a siege of this size, the fighting was small. At most six or seven Muslims were killed, most of them by arrows, and three or four of the enemy. The Companions counted this as a sign from Allah (47:7). A handful of horsemen did get across at a narrow point. Amr ibn Abd Wud, an elder of the Quraysh famed for his ferocity, had put on a red turban, a known sign that he had come to kill. He called out for a challenger. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA offered to fight him. Amr called out three times. Each time Ali stood up, and each time the Prophet ﷺ held him back, reminding him that this was Amr ibn Abd Wud. The third time, Ali said that he would fight him even if he was Amr, and the Prophet ﷺ let him go. Amr sneered at the idea of fighting a youth, and Ali replied that he had every desire to kill him. Ibn Ishaq says that the dust raised by their horses hid the fight, and that a takbir rang out to announce Ali's victory. Another report says that Amr's blow split Ali's shield, and in the same instant Ali killed him with one stroke to the neck. Nawfal ibn Abdillah rolled down into the trench and was killed. In al-Tabari's report from Ibn Ishaq, it was Ali RA who killed him, while other retellings say it was Zubayr RA. Al-Tirmidhi reports that the Quraysh wanted to buy back Nawfal's body. The Prophet ﷺ refused to take money for it, but he told them to come and take the body and bury it. According to Ibn Ishaq, Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahal fled back across, throwing away his spear. Later reports add Khalid ibn al-Walid as well. Both men were still pagans at the time. The costliest arrow was the one shot by Hiban ibn al-Ariqah. Aisha had watched Sa'd ibn Mu'adh say goodbye to his mother in the fortress, and she had wished aloud that his breastplate covered more of him. The arrow struck him exactly there, cutting the vein of his arm. Sa'd prayed that if the Quraysh were going to fight again, he might live to fight them. If this was the last time, he asked to be taken as a martyr, but not before his eyes had been comforted by what became of the Banu Qurayza. He was moved, bleeding, to the hospital tent of Rufayda al-Aslamiyyah RA. He would live just long enough for that prayer to be answered. On one of those days the fighting was so intense that the Muslims missed the Asr prayer altogether. After sunset, Umar RA came to the Prophet ﷺ to confess it. The Prophet ﷺ answered that he too had not prayed. He cursed the enemy for keeping them from the middle prayer mentioned in Qur'an 2:238. Then he prayed Asr and then Maghrib, in that order. The fiqh of making up missed prayers is derived from that evening. As the siege wore on, the tide was turned by a single man. Nuaym ibn Mas'ud RA was a second-rank noble of the Ghatafan. He had carried messages for Abu Sufyan in the past and had dealt with the Banu Qurayza for years. One night he walked into the Muslim camp and waited for the Prophet ﷺ to finish praying. Then he said that Allah had thrown Islam into his heart, and that he would do whatever he was told. He was the only Muslim in his tribe, and no one knew it. The Prophet ﷺ told him that he was only one man, but that he should do what he could. Nuaym asked whether he was allowed to say whatever he liked. The Prophet ﷺ gave his famous answer that war is khid'a, a ruse. A ruse is not khiyana, the betrayal of a trust. Nuaym went first to the Banu Qurayza. Speaking as an old friend, he advised them not to fight until the Quraysh handed over some of their nobles as hostages. Later accounts give the number as seventy. Otherwise, he warned, the Quraysh could ride away and leave the Banu Qurayza to face the consequences. The next morning he went to Abu Sufyan and warned him, in confidence, that the Banu Qurayza regretted their treachery. He said they had offered Muhammad ﷺ the heads of seventy men of the Quraysh to make amends, and that a request for hostages would be the sign. Then he told his own tribe the same thing. Within hours, Azzal ibn Samuel arrived from the Banu Qurayza. He demanded a date for a joint assault and seventy nobles as a guarantee. Abu Sufyan was hearing exactly what Nuaym had predicted. He sent Azzal away, saying "let me think about it", and then told the Quraysh not to hand anyone over. Nuaym went back to the Banu Qurayza and told them that Abu Sufyan had sworn not to give them even a baby camel. Ka'b ibn Asad began to lament that Huyayy had brought them nothing but ruin, and al-Zubayr ibn Batta saw plainly that if the confederates left, nothing awaited his people but the sword. Abu Sufyan now feared that the Banu Qurayza would switch sides again. He ordered a general attack for the next morning and sent Ikrimah to tell them so. It was Friday, after Asr. The Banu Qurayza answered that the next day was the Sabbath, on which they would not fight. Even on Sunday, they said, they would not move without the seventy hostages. The Quraysh had never lived beside Jews. To them, a day on which one may not fight sounded like an excuse to run to Muhammad ﷺ. Abu Sufyan demanded an explanation from Huyayy. He dismissed the Sabbath as just a day between Sunday and Friday, and he swore by al-Lat and al-Uzza that this was treachery. Huyayy was terrified. He crept away to beg the Banu Qurayza to break the Sabbath just this once, but Ka'b refused in fury. Huyayy was too afraid to go back to Abu Sufyan, so he stayed inside the fortress. That choice would cost him his life. That Friday night the weather broke. The Companions remembered it as the coldest, darkest and windiest night of their lives. It was so black that a man could not see his own fingertips, and the wind roared like thunder. Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman RA told the story as an old man in Iraq. He was speaking to a young man who boasted of what he would have done if he had been with the Prophet ﷺ. Hudhayfah recalled that the Prophet ﷺ asked three times who would bring him news of the enemy. He promised that whoever went would be his companion on the Day of Judgment. Three times, after a month of siege, no one answered. Then the Prophet ﷺ said, "O Hudhayfah". Hudhayfah admitted that after that he had no choice but to go. He stood up shivering. Yet, as Muslim reports, he felt warm, as if he were walking in a heated bath, until he reached the enemy. The Prophet ﷺ had prayed for his protection from every side, and Hudhayfah said that after that prayer his fear left him. He walked through the storm into the camp of the Quraysh, unrecognised in the dark. He found himself close enough to Abu Sufyan to shoot him, but he remembered his order to stay hidden. Abu Sufyan told every man to check who was sitting beside him. Hudhayfah seized the hand of the man next to him and demanded his name first. Then Abu Sufyan stood up and spoke to the Quraysh. He told them that their horses and camels were dying and that the Banu Qurayza had betrayed them. The wind would not let a pot stand or a fire burn. Whatever the rest of them decided, he said, he was leaving. He untied his camel and rode away, and the Quraysh went with him. Hudhayfah had a second clear shot at him, and again he let him go. Al-Bayhaqi reports that on the way back, Hudhayfah met twenty horsemen with veiled faces. They told him to tell his companion that they had fought on his behalf. These horsemen were the angels. Hudhayfah found the Prophet ﷺ standing in prayer, wrapped in a blanket belonging to one of his wives. He was drawn in under the blanket to warm himself until the prayer ended. Then he gave the news. The Prophet ﷺ had spent the night in supplication against the confederates. He called on Allah as the Sender of the Book, the Swift in reckoning, the Mover of the clouds and the Defeater of the confederates, asking Him to shake them and defeat them. Allah answered with the Saba wind. This is the eastern wind of mercy that gathers rain clouds, not the Dabur wind that destroyed the people of Ad. It broke the confederates' camp but killed none of them, and many of those men would one day become Muslims. The Qur'an speaks of it in 33:9, which mentions a wind and forces you could not see. When the Muslims woke the next morning, the plain was empty and every tent had been overturned. The Prophet ﷺ had barely laid down his armour when Jibril AS came to him. Jibril told him that the angels had not yet laid down theirs. So the army was sent on without pausing, to the fortress of the Banu Qurayza. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh lived long enough to give the judgment on them, and then he died of his wound. Sallam ibn Abi al-Huqayq, who had financed the confederacy, was killed in Khaybar in the months that followed. The Prophet ﷺ had said that from now on, the Muslims would be the ones to march. His words came true at Hudaybiyyah, Khaybar and finally Makkah itself.

After Khaybar was taken, its Jewish tribes made a treaty with the Muslims. They could stay on their lands for the time being, but they had to hand over all their gold, silver, weapons and armour. Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the former leader of Banu al-Nadir, had left Madinah with a great deal of gold. So the Prophet ﷺ asked Sa'ya, Huyayy's uncle (or, by one report, his brother), "Where is the gold of Huyayy?" Sa'ya said that it had all been spent. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "It's only been a recent time since he left Madinah, and the money is too much to have been spent in such a short period of time." Sa'ya kept insisting that he knew nothing. The Prophet ﷺ then handed him over to Zubayr ibn al-Awwam RA and said, "Extract the information from him." Before long, Sa'ya said that he had seen Huyayy go to a certain valley, and that he might have hidden the gold there. The Muslims went to that valley and found all the gold.

Safiyyah was a young girl in Madinah on the day the Prophet ﷺ arrived there. Her father was Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the chief of the Banu Nadir. She was his favourite child, and the favourite of her uncle Abu Yasir too. One day the two men came home from going to see the Prophet ﷺ. Safiyyah ran to greet them, but they walked straight past her with their shoulders slumped. Then she overheard them talking. Her uncle asked whether it was really him. Her father answered, "By the Lord of Moses, it is him." Her uncle asked what they would do now. Her father said they would oppose him for as long as he lived. Later Safiyyah was exiled along with her tribe. She settled in Khaybar and married there. In the fighting at Khaybar, the Banu Nadir threw themselves into the front line of its defence. More of them died than of Khaybar's own people, and her husband Kinana was among the dead. When the fighting ended, Safiyyah was a widow and a captive. When the captives were divided, she was given to Dihyah al-Kalbi. Some Companions told the Prophet ﷺ that the daughter of the chief of the Banu Nadir should be his, not left with Dihyah. So he paid Dihyah her price and took her. At first no one knew whether he had taken her as a servant or as a wife, so they watched. When it was time to leave Khaybar, he made his camel kneel. He knelt down himself and made his thigh into a step to help her mount. Out of respect, she placed her knee on it rather than her foot. Then he covered her with his cloak. At that the Companions understood, because that veil was only for his wives. Safiyyah herself did not yet know what it meant. When he went to her on the first night, she refused him, and he left her alone. When they were a night's journey from Madinah, she agreed. He asked Umm Sulaym to prepare her. Umm Sulaym hung two cloths between some trees, and the women did what they could with the little they had. They worried that they had no perfume or jewellery for her. But when they had finished, they smelt a scent finer than any they knew. When the Prophet ﷺ came in, he said the hard thing first. He said to her, "Your father Huyayy was the most open of the Jews in their animosity against me until Allah caused his death." This was a test of what was in her heart. She answered with a teaching of the Qur'an, that no soul bears the burden of another. Then he said to her, "You have a choice. If you accept Islam, I shall keep you for me; if you remain in your faith, then perhaps I will free you and you can return to your people." As she understood it, staying with him meant remaining a captive. She told him that she had been drawn to Islam even before he offered it, and had already believed in him. She said she had no people to go back to, since her father and her brother were gone. And she said that Allah and His Messenger ﷺ were dearer to her than her own family. So he freed her, made her freedom her dowry, and married her. He had noticed a bruise on her face and asked her about it. She explained that she had once told her husband about a dream. In it, the moon rose from Yathrib and fell into her lap. Her husband struck her and asked whether she expected the king of the Arabs to marry her. He had understood the dream correctly. Later she was asked why she had refused him on the first night. She said that they were still so close to Khaybar that she had feared the Jews would retaliate. The Prophet ﷺ loved her all the more for it. Abu Ayyub al-Ansari stood outside the tent all night with his sword drawn. He was afraid of what a woman whose family had died at Muslim hands might do. In the morning the Prophet ﷺ found him there. He laughed and prayed for him. The wedding feast was made of whatever anyone had. There were dates, a little clarified butter and barley, all mixed together. On the road home, the walls of Madinah came into sight. As was the custom in Madinah, the riders whipped their camels forward. The Prophet ﷺ's camel stumbled and threw both him and Safiyyah to the ground. Every Companion turned his face away. Only Abu Talha cried out to ask whether he was all right. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "I am okay; I am not hurt." He was on his feet at once and put his cloak over her. In Madinah the other wives came to look at her. Zaynab bint Jahsh said to Juwayriyya that this one would be trouble. Safiyyah belonged to neither of the groups among the wives, since she had no family of her own there. Perhaps that is why the Prophet ﷺ was so tender with her. Once Hafsa called her "the daughter of a Jew", and Safiyyah wept. The Prophet ﷺ asked her, "Why didn't you defend yourself?" She asked how. He said, "You should have said your father was a prophet (Harun), and your uncle was a prophet (Musa), and you are married to a prophet. What do they have over you?" On the Farewell Hajj, he stopped speaking to Zaynab because she refused Safiyyah a camel. In his last illness, Safiyyah said she wished she could take his fever on herself. The other wives said something unkind to her. He told them to rinse their mouths, and when they asked why, he said, "Because you have made fun of Safiyyah, and wallahi, she has spoken the truth." She died in 52 AH.

Sallam ibn Abi al-Huqayq was a wealthy leader of Khaybar. He was the main funder of the Battle of Khandaq, and he had paid for the mercenaries of the Ghatafan tribe who fought in it. Some time earlier, men of the Aws had killed Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf. Men of the Khazraj felt that the Aws had outdone them, and they wanted to show the same devotion. They asked the Prophet ﷺ for permission to kill Sallam. He gave it, on condition that no women or children be harmed. Five men of the Khazraj set out, led by Abdullah ibn Atik RA, who spoke the language of Khaybar well. Just before sunset, as the city gates were being closed, Abdullah slipped inside. After nightfall he opened the gate and let the others in. The five made their way to Sallam's house and killed him. His wife screamed to raise the alarm. One of the men was about to strike her, but he remembered the Prophet ﷺ's order and spared her. As they fled, Abdullah ibn Atik slipped and sprained or broke his foot, and the others carried him out. They escaped with no other injury. When they returned, the Prophet ﷺ rubbed his hand over Abdullah's foot, and it was healed.

Hafsa bint Umar RA once called Safiyyah bint Huyayy RA "bint al-Yahudi" (daughter of a Jew) as an insult, and Safiyyah was left in tears. The Prophet ﷺ came to visit her and found her crying. He asked, "What is the matter?" She told him what Hafsa had said. He asked, "Why didn't you defend yourself?" She asked him how. He told her, "You should have said your father was a prophet, and your uncle was a prophet, and you are married to a prophet. What do they have over you?" By her father and her uncle, he meant the prophets Harun (Aaron) and Musa (Moses).

No one knows the year this happened. Ibn Sayyid al-Nas says it was the ninth year of the Hijrah. Others say the fourth, fifth or sixth. Some clues point to a late date. By then the Prophet ﷺ was married to all nine of his wives: Sawda, Aisha, Hafsa, Umm Salama, Juwayriyya, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Umm Habiba, Safiyyah and Maymunah. Also, Umar was worried at the time about an attack by the Ghassanids, and that fear ended after Tabuk. On the other hand, Umar went in to see Aisha, which points to a time before the verses of hijab. The verses revealed about the episode are in Surah al-Ahzab, but that proves nothing about the date, because the verses of a surah did not have to come down together. The cause is easier to state than the date. The Prophet ﷺ had never lived in comfort. As a boy he worked as a shepherd for pennies. He lived as a lodger in Abu Talib's crowded house. He had no riding animal of his own until the Hijrah. When wealth came, it went to the community rather than to him. It came in the ransoms of Badr, the fields of Khaybar, and the gift of Fadak, which fed his household. Greatest of all were the spoils of Hunayn. He kept none of them for himself, even though the law allowed a ruler his share. This was his own choice. An angel who had never come down before had once brought him an offer from his Lord. He could be a king and messenger, or a slave and messenger. Jibril signalled to him to humble himself, and he chose to be a slave. The narrator says that after that day he was never seen eating while leaning back against a wall. His wives saw the standard of living rising all around them in Madinah, but not in their own rooms. At some point, most likely in the eighth or ninth year, they went to him together and asked for more. No book records exactly what they asked for, and that is right, because it was a private household matter. What is clear is that they asked together, that Aisha and Hafsa led them, and that what they wanted was lawful. He answered with an ila'. This is an oath before Allah to stay away from one's wives. The law allows it for up to four months, when a marriage needs time to cool down. He swore it for one month. Then he withdrew to a small loft near the mosque, which was reached by a ladder. Umar later told the story to Ibn Abbas. Ibn Abbas had waited more than a year for a chance to ask him about the two wives addressed in Surah al-Tahrim. Umar began with the affair of Maria. He explained that the men of the Quraysh had been used to ruling over their women. In Madinah they found people whose women ruled over them, and their own wives began to learn the same ways. One day, at his house in al-Awali, Umar's wife answered him back. When he scolded her, she told him that the Prophet ﷺ's own wives answered him back. Some of them even stayed away from him for a whole day when they were angry. Umar went straight to his daughter Hafsa and asked if this was true. She said it was. He told her that any woman who did that had lost everything. He warned her never to answer the Prophet ﷺ back again, and never to trouble him for anything. If she needed something, she should bring it to her father. He also told her not to be misled by what her co-wife could get away with. Aisha was more graceful than Hafsa and dearer to the Prophet ﷺ, he said, and she would be forgiven things that Hafsa would not. Umar and a neighbour of his from the Ansar used to take turns. One would work the land while the other spent the day with the Prophet ﷺ and brought back the news. In those days everyone was talking about a Ghassanid army that was said to be shoeing its horses to march on them. One night after Isha, the neighbour hammered on Umar's door. Umar asked whether the Ghassanids had come. The neighbour said no, it was something worse. He said the Prophet ﷺ had divorced his wives. Umar went at first light. He found the mosque full of men sitting in silence, turning pebbles over in their hands. In one telling, he went first to Aisha. He asked whether the daughter of Abu Bakr had troubled the Prophet ﷺ so much that he had left all of them. She told him to mind his own business. Then he went to Hafsa and found her weeping. He reminded her that he had warned her. He told her she knew the Prophet ﷺ did not love her, and that if she were not his daughter, the Prophet ﷺ would have divorced her long ago. Hafsa did not know whether they had been divorced. She only knew that he had gone up to the loft. A servant stood at the foot of the ladder. One version says it was Bilal. Umar asked him to ask permission for him to come in. The servant came back and said he had mentioned Umar, but the Prophet ﷺ had said nothing. Umar went and sat by the minbar. Then he came back and was refused a second time. The third time, Umar called up loudly. He said he thought the Prophet ﷺ believed he had come on Hafsa's behalf. He swore by Allah that if he were told to strike off her head, he would do it. Then he was let in. Inside, he found a room with some barley, a half-tanned water-skin, a chamber pot and a few animal hides. The Prophet ﷺ was lying on a mat of palm fibre, and its weave had left marks on his side. Umar asked whether he had divorced his wives. The Prophet ﷺ said he had not. Umar said "Allahu akbar." He could see the tension, so he told the Prophet ﷺ the whole story about the women of Madinah. He also told him how he had warned Hafsa not to compare herself with Aisha. The Prophet ﷺ smiled, then smiled again, and invited Umar to sit. Umar looked around the room and could see nothing else in it. He asked why the Prophet ﷺ did not pray for his people to be given wealth, as Persia and Rome had been, when those nations did not even worship Allah. Then Umar began to cry. When the Prophet ﷺ asked him why, Umar said it was because the mat had marked the side of Allah's chosen one, while Kisra and Caesar lay in silk. The Prophet ﷺ sat up. He said, "O son of al-Khattab, are you in doubt? Are you not content that Allah has chosen us over them for the Next world and given them this world?" Umar asked him to pray for Allah's forgiveness for him. Another version adds something Umar said. He told the Prophet ﷺ that if he wished to divorce any of his wives, then Allah, Jibril and Mika'il, Abu Bakr, Umar himself and all the believers were with him. Umar used to say that he hoped Allah would confirm what he had said. Allah did, in the fourth verse of Surah al-Tahrim. It was one of three times the Qur'an came down in agreement with Umar. After twenty-nine days the Prophet ﷺ came back down. Aisha reminded him that he had sworn to stay away for a month, and it had only been twenty-nine days. He said, "The month may be 29 days as well." He went to her room first. He told her he was going to put something to her. He asked her not to answer in haste, and to consult her parents before she replied. Then he recited the verses Allah had sent down: "O Prophet ﷺ, say to your wives, if you desire the life of this world and its adornment, come and I will provide for you and release you graciously. But if you desire Allah and His Messenger ﷺ and the Home of the Hereafter, then Allah has prepared for those of you who do good a great reward." Aisha understood why he had told her to consult her parents. He knew they would never tell her to leave him. She asked what there was to consult about. She said she chose Allah and His Messenger ﷺ and the Hereafter. Then she asked him not to tell the other wives what she had chosen. He refused. He said Allah had sent him to convey the message, not to make things hard. He put the same choice to each of his wives in turn, and every one of them chose as Aisha had. The whole city had known about the quarrel, and Allah put it into the Qur'an. The problem it revealed did not lie with the wives. It lay in a standard of living that a messenger who had chosen to be a slave could not share with them. The episode is the source of the law of ila'. It is also the source of the husband's right to give his wife the choice of divorce. And it gives the plainest picture the Companions left of how the Prophet ﷺ chose to live.

The Prophet ﷺ's final illness began with a fever, around the 1st or 2nd of Rabi' al-Awwal, 11 AH. He was in the house of Maymunah RA when it started. For the first few days he kept to his usual practice of staying at each wife's house in turn. When he grew too weak for this, he asked his wives for permission to stay in the house of Aisha RA for the rest of his illness, and they agreed. In Aisha RA's house, she often recited ruqya over him and poured water on him to bring the fever down. Once Aisha RA complained that she had a headache. Even though he was in pain himself, the Prophet ﷺ gently teased her. He said that his own pain was worse, and that he would outlive her so that he could wash her body and pray over her. She teased him back, saying he would only enjoy that because it would leave him free for his other wives. As the illness got worse, he asked for buckets of cool water from a particular well to be poured over his head, to ease the throbbing pain, so that he could go out and advise the people. He came out with a cloth tied around his head. The Prophet ﷺ had never been this ill before. People heard that he was leading only shortened prayers and leaving quickly afterwards. Out of concern, Umar RA, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA and other sahaba who had no houses nearby began camping in the Masjid. It grew crowded with people waiting for news. Al-Abbas RA and Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, the closest of his Ahl al-Bayt, carried the Prophet ﷺ to the Masjid on their shoulders. He spoke to the people from the minbar, probably on a Friday. He ordered that all the private doors opening from houses straight into the Masjid be closed. He made only one exception, the door of Abu Bakr RA. This honour was understood to mark Abu Bakr RA out above the rest of the sahaba. One night, traditionally dated to that same Thursday or Friday, the Prophet ﷺ was too weak to get up and lead Salat al-Isha. He fainted several times as he tried. He told Aisha RA to have Abu Bakr RA lead the prayer in his place. Aisha RA did not want her father to be linked with what she feared might be the Prophet ﷺ's death. Twice she tried to have Umar RA, the father of Hafsa RA, lead instead. The Prophet ﷺ saw through the plan. He compared the two women to the women around Yusuf AS, and insisted on Abu Bakr RA. From then until the Prophet ﷺ's death, Abu Bakr RA led the congregational prayers. In ten years in Madinah, this was the first time anyone other than the Prophet ﷺ had led them as a standing arrangement. A day or two before his death, the Prophet ﷺ found enough strength to be carried out to a Zuhr prayer that had already begun. He signalled to Abu Bakr RA to stay where he was. Out of respect, Abu Bakr RA insisted that the Prophet ﷺ take the imam's place instead. The Prophet ﷺ then led the prayer sitting down, while Abu Bakr RA stood beside him and repeated his takbirs aloud for the people. Sunni scholars read this moment as the clearest sign of whom the Prophet ﷺ wanted the ummah to follow after him. He gave that sign without ever naming a successor outright. After that Zuhr prayer, he stood on the minbar for the last time. He urged the people to take care of the Ansar, because they had fulfilled what they owed. In those last days he also gave orders from his sickbed. He ordered that the polytheists be expelled from the Arabian Peninsula. He ordered that delegations be honoured with gifts, as he had honoured them. Three days before his death, he told the people that none of them should die except while thinking well of Allah. Ali RA reports that among his very last words were "The prayer, the prayer, and fear Allah regarding those whom your right hands possess." On the Sunday before he died, the Prophet ﷺ asked Aisha RA how much money was left in the house. She brought him the seven silver coins (dirhams) that remained. He insisted that they be given away at once. He asked what he could expect from Allah if he met Him with those coins still in his possession. When he died he owned no gold or silver at all. He left only some barley in a small cup, his mule, and a plot of land he had already given to the poor. His armour was pledged to a Jewish creditor in Madinah for 30 sa' of barley. At Fajr on Monday, 12 Rabi' al-Awwal, he was too weak to lead the prayer himself, so Abu Bakr RA led it as usual. The Prophet ﷺ asked to be sat up so that he could lift the curtain between his room and the Masjid. When he saw his ummah praying in rows, his joy was plain to see. The sahaba were so happy that they nearly broke off their own prayer. It was the last time they ever saw his face. In those final days Fatimah RA, the last of his children still alive, came to see him. He told her privately that his time had come. He also told her that she would be the first of his family to join him, and that she would be the leader of the women of Jannah. She kept this news secret until after his death, and then she told Aisha RA. As the pangs of death grew stronger, he was heard repeating, "There is no god but Allah. Verily, death has its pangs." He also made du'a, asking Allah to help him bear it. Usama ibn Zayd RA had turned his expedition back when he heard of the illness, and he came to visit. The Prophet ﷺ could no longer speak. He could only make a weak gesture towards the sky, again and again, in silent blessing. Aisha RA held him against her chest. Later she gave him a miswak she had borrowed from her brother, Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr RA, and he used it with unusual vigour. At midday on Monday, 12 Rabi' al-Awwal, 11 AH, in the heat of the day, his gaze was lifted upward. Aisha RA leaned in to listen. She heard him ask to be joined with the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs and the righteous. Three times he repeated, "O Allah, forgive me, have mercy on me, and let me be with al-Rafiq al-A'la." These were his last words. He passed away in her house, on her day, in her lap. The news of his death threw Madinah into shock. Umar RA could not accept it. He threatened to strike anyone who repeated the claim. He insisted that the Prophet ﷺ had only gone to Allah, as Musa AS once had for forty days. That morning, Abu Bakr RA had seen the Prophet ﷺ smile and assumed he was recovering, so he had gone home to Awali. Now he rode back at once. He confirmed the death at Aisha RA's house and kissed the Prophet ﷺ's forehead. Then he spoke to the people in the Masjid from the lower step of the minbar. He did not stand on its top step, and every khalifa and khatib after him kept to the same restraint. Abu Bakr RA declared that whoever worshipped Muhammad ﷺ should know that Muhammad ﷺ had died. But whoever worshipped Allah should know that Allah is ever-living and does not die. Then he recited Qur'an 3:144. When Umar RA heard the verse, he collapsed. He said it was as if he had never heard it before. Several sahaba composed elegies (ritha') for the Prophet ﷺ. The most famous were by his poet, Hassan ibn Thabit RA. On Tuesday, his household gathered to wash his body. Ibn Ishaq names them as al-Abbas RA, al-Abbas RA's sons al-Fadl RA and Qutham RA, Ali ibn Abi Talib RA, Usama ibn Zayd RA, and the freed slave Shuqran. It is reported that an unseen voice guided them to wash him with his clothes still on. He was shrouded in three plain white cloths from Yemen, without a shirt or turban. The sahaba disagreed about where to bury him. Abu Bakr RA remembered that the Prophet ﷺ had said a prophet is buried wherever his soul is taken. So a grave was dug under the very spot in Aisha RA's room where he had died. No one led the funeral prayer. Instead, the people of Madinah came in and prayed over him in groups, first the men, then the women, then the children. He was buried in the middle of the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. Fatimah RA saw the fresh grave where his bed had been, and she could not hold back her grief. Anas ibn Malik RA had served the Prophet ﷺ for ten years. He remembered that on the day the Prophet ﷺ entered Madinah, everything in it was lit up. On the day he died, everything in it went dark. Anas RA said they had hardly dusted the earth off their hands from burying him before they felt their hearts had changed.