Ghassan (Ghassasinah)

Al-Harith ibn Umayr al-Azdi was an envoy sent by the Prophet ﷺ with a letter for Heraclius, the Roman emperor. On the way he passed through the lands of the Ghassanids. They were the largest Arab Christian tribe, and they served the Romans as their Arab vassals. The Ghassanids captured al-Harith and took him to their chieftain, Shurahbil ibn Amr. Al-Harith told him that he was the envoy of the Prophet ﷺ, carrying a letter to Heraclius, and asked to be let go. Instead, Shurahbil mocked him and tortured him. Then he killed al-Harith with his own hands, thrusting a spear into him. This was a grave crime, because envoys and messengers were never to be harmed.

The Battle of Tabuk has two names, and the sahaba used both. The first is Ghazwa Tabuk, because the Muslim army was saved at Tabuk. On the march the sahaba had run out of water. Mu'adh ibn Jabal RA reports that the Prophet ﷺ told them they would reach the spring of Tabuk the next day, at the hottest part of the day. He warned them not to touch its water until he arrived. Two men touched it before he came, and they were rebuked. The Prophet ﷺ then washed his hands and face in what water remained, and the water gushed out until the whole army drank from it. The army is traditionally reported as 20,000 men, though figures like this in the sources were often inflated. The second name is Jaysh al-Usrah, the Army of Difficulty. Imam al-Bukhari records this name alongside Ghazwa Tabuk in his own chapter heading. The army earned the name because this campaign was harsher than any other. Managing so large an army strained food, water and supplies. The march took place in the hottest part of the year, with temperatures around 110°F. It was also the longest distance any army led by the Prophet ﷺ ever marched, roughly 650 km northwest of Madinah. Finally, it fell during Madinah's August harvest. This was a farming society with no idea of a steady salary, so leaving meant giving up the year's main income. The expedition took place in the month of Rajab, 9 AH, exactly six months after the Siege of Ta'if. It was the Prophet ﷺ's final ghazwa, or military campaign. After it he made his Farewell Hajj and fell ill, and from there the seerah moves toward his death and the khilafa. No swords actually clashed at Tabuk. The difficulty was the march itself. Every able-bodied man was called to take part, even men from as far away as Makkah. The most famous story of the expedition, however, is not about the march. It is about the people who missed it. Ka'b ibn Malik RA was one of the earliest Ansari converts, from Banu Salama, and he had taken part in the Bay'at al-Aqaba. He owned two camels and was healthier and wealthier than he had ever been. Even so, he kept putting off his preparations day after day, until the army had gone too far to catch. Ka'b was not alone. Apart from the hypocrites and those with a genuine excuse, the whole city had marched. When the Prophet ﷺ returned, more than eighty of the men who had stayed behind came to him, swore oaths and offered excuses. He accepted what they said at face value and left their true intentions to Allah. Qur'an 9:43 later mildly rebuked him for this. Only three men refused to lie and told the Prophet ﷺ the plain truth. They were Ka'b, Murara ibn al-Rabi' al-Amri RA and Hilal ibn Umayyah al-Waqifi RA. Murara and Hilal were both veterans of Badr. The Prophet ﷺ forbade the whole community to speak to the three of them. For fifty nights everyone shunned them. In Ka'b's case, this included his own cousin Abu Qatada RA. During this time the King of Ghassan sent Ka'b a letter to lure him away. Ka'b burned it, seeing it as a test. Forty days in, the three men were also ordered to separate from their wives. On the fiftieth morning, Ka'b was praying Fajr on his rooftop. A man of the Aslam tribe climbed Jabal Sal', the mountain you can see as you leave the Masjid al-Nabawi. He called out that Allah had accepted their repentance. His voice reached Ka'b before a horseman who had been sent to bring the news in person. Ka'b gave that horseman the only clothes he owned. He then had to borrow a garment from a neighbour so that he could go to the Prophet ﷺ. The repentance of Ka'b and his two companions was announced across Madinah. It was the occasion for Qur'an 9:117-119, which speaks of Allah turning in mercy to "the three who were left behind." Of all the Muhajirun, only Talha ibn Ubaydillah RA stood up to congratulate Ka'b. From that day on, Ka'b resolved never again to knowingly tell a lie. Before the army set out, the Prophet ﷺ called for donations from the minbar, and the sahaba raced to give. Umar ibn al-Khattab RA thought he could finally outdo Abu Bakr RA. He brought half his wealth and told the Prophet ﷺ that he had left an equal amount for his family. This is narrated in Sunan al-Tirmidhi. Then Abu Bakr RA brought everything he owned. He said he had left his family only "Allah and His Messenger ﷺ." Umar admitted that he could never compete with him again. Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA had arrived in Madinah with nothing but the clothes on his back. Now he gave 200 uqiyas of grain. Uthman ibn Affan RA gave on two occasions that are remembered. The first was during the Prophet ﷺ's khutbah. Uthman pledged a hundred camels, then raised it to two hundred, and finally to three hundred with everything they carried. At that, the Prophet ﷺ came down from the minbar and declared, "Uthman has no sin after what he has done today." The second came when one of Uthman's trading caravans returned from Syria around the same time. He sold the whole caravan for roughly a thousand gold coins and poured the coins out before the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Whatever Uthman does after today, it will not harm him." Years later, when the neo-Kharijites turned against Uthman, Ibn Abbas RA reminded them of this promise in his defence. The hypocrites, by contrast, gave nothing and mocked those who did. A poor Ansari man had earned two handfuls of dates by drawing water all night, and he brought one of them. Two hypocrites jeered at him. They said that Allah had no need of so little, and that the man needed it more than anyone. This prompted Qur'an 9:79. Other hypocrites made excuses to avoid marching at all. Al-Jad ibn Qays asked to be let off, claiming he feared he would lose self-control around Roman women. The Prophet ﷺ simply turned away from him, and Qur'an 9:49 is tied to this. Qur'an 9:81-82 and 9:42 rebuke the wider group of hypocrites for rejoicing at staying behind and for finding the journey too far. On the other side were the Bakka'un, "the Criers." They were roughly seven men, including relatives of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari and Irbad ibn Sariya RA. They wanted to march but had no mount. When the Prophet ﷺ told them so, they wept (Qur'an 9:92). Later, at Tabuk, the Prophet ﷺ told the sahaba that sincere companions like these, back in Madinah, shared fully in the army's reward. Ulba ibn Zayd RA had no wealth to give. Instead, he pledged to defend the Prophet ﷺ with his own honour against the hypocrites' taunts. The Prophet ﷺ accepted this as charity. Wathila ibn al-Asqa' RA also had no money and no mount. Every day he went to the marketplace and offered his future share of the ghanima, the spoils of war, to anyone who would take him along. In the end, an elder of the Ansar agreed to share a camel and meals with him. Later, Wathila tried to hand over the very camels he had won as booty in payment, but the elder refused to accept them. Two other companions also put off their preparations, as Ka'b ibn Malik RA had, and nearly missed the expedition. But they recovered themselves at the last moment. Abu Khaythama al-Ansari RA delayed just as Ka'b did. Then he came home and found that his wife had prepared a shaded, watered rug and food for him. He rebuked himself for enjoying comfort while the Prophet ﷺ endured the heat, and he rushed out alone to catch up. The Prophet ﷺ spotted a lone rider in the distance and said, "Let it be Abu Khaythama." When he arrived, the Prophet ﷺ asked him why he had been delayed. Once he heard the story, he gently rebuked him, saying, "Woe to you, Abu Khaythama!" Abu Dharr al-Ghifari RA fell behind because his camel was unfit to travel. So he loaded its burden onto his own back and walked the whole distance alone. The Prophet ﷺ saw a solitary figure approaching on foot and said, "Let it be Abu Dharr!" Then he remarked, "May Allah have mercy upon Abu Dharr. He is walking by himself, he will die by himself, and he will be resurrected by himself." Years later, this was fulfilled almost exactly when Abu Dharr died alone in the desert. Ibn Sa'd places his death in the khilafa of Ali ibn Abi Talib RA. His exile and death have their own separate event. The hypocrites also organised opposition during this same period. This included building Masjid al-Dirar as a rival headquarters. That story is treated as its own event (see Masjid al-Dirar), because it unfolded on a separate track at the same time as the march. Before leaving Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ put Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA in charge of the city's affairs. He always appointed someone to run the city whenever he left it. He told Ali ibn Abi Talib RA to stay behind and take charge of his household, the Mother of the Believers and the Ahl al-Bayt, since the journey would take more than a month. The munafiqun, the hypocrites, mocked Ali RA for staying behind and called him unfit to fight. Ali RA was well known for his bravery, but the taunt stung him. He armed himself and caught up with the army to protest. The Prophet ﷺ reassured him with what is known as the hadith of manzila. He said, "Are you not content to be with me like Harun was with Musa, except that there is no prophet after me?" Ali RA was left in charge only of the Prophet ﷺ's family, not of Madinah itself. Madinah was Muhammad ibn Maslamah RA's responsibility. Sunni scholars point to this detail against the Shia reading of the hadith, which takes it as evidence of a designated political succession. The army left by way of Thaniyat al-Wada'. This is the hill north of the Haram where Madinan families traditionally gathered to say farewell to travellers. There the Prophet ﷺ paused to organise the army into battalions by tribe, each with its own leader and flag. It was the largest army ever assembled under him. He had no military training, yet this organisation showed his skill. On the march, the sahaba began falling asleep on their mounts after Fajr, and their camels scattered. Mu'adh ibn Jabal RA found himself riding alone, close to the Prophet ﷺ. He took the chance to ask him privately what deed would gain him Jannah. This conversation is preserved at length in Musnad Imam Ahmad (see the Sayings & Actions below). The army camped at Tabuk for twenty days, and the Prophet ﷺ prayed qasr, the shortened prayer of a traveller, throughout. Later fiqh discussions cite this when asking how long a traveller (musafir) praying qasr may stay in one place. The morning after they arrived, he ﷺ also delivered a khutbah, which Uqba ibn Amir al-Juhani RA preserved (see the separate Khutbah at Tabuk event). During the twenty days at Tabuk, the Prophet ﷺ also sent Khalid ibn al-Walid RA to Dawmat al-Jandal. There Khalid captured Ukaydir ibn Abd al-Malik, the Kindah chieftain. Through treaties, he sealed the whole northern frontier against Rome (see the separate Dawmat al-Jandal expedition). Over the twenty days at Tabuk, the Prophet ﷺ gave many short khutbahs and khatirahs, or brief talks. Several of them are preserved in the books of hadith and seerah. In one, he ﷺ said that Allah had given him five things granted to no prophet before him. First, he ﷺ was sent to all of mankind, not to one people alone. Second, Allah made him victorious through the awe his enemies felt a month's journey away. Third, ghanima was made lawful for him ﷺ, though it had not been for earlier nations. Fourth, the whole earth was made a place of purification and prayer, so his ﷺ ummah could pray anywhere, not only in a house of worship. Fifth, he ﷺ had saved his own personal request to Allah for the Day of Judgment, and he promised it to whoever testifies la ilaha illallah. This is understood as the Great Intercession. In another talk, narrated by Awf ibn Malik RA, he ﷺ foretold six signs before the Day of Judgment. The last of them are a truce and then a betrayal by the Bani al-Asfar, the Romans. The stay also saw repeated miracles in which food and water increased when supplies ran low. These were reported four or five times on this expedition alone. There was also a karamah, in which a companion who was lost in the dark found his way back to camp by the light of his own glowing fingers. One Fajr, the Prophet ﷺ was delayed while performing wudu, so Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf RA led the salah. Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba RA helped the Prophet ﷺ with his wudu and narrated what happened. His account includes the Prophet ﷺ's instruction to leave his khuff, his leather socks, on rather than take them off for washing. The Prophet ﷺ then prayed the rak'ah he had missed behind Abd al-Rahman. It was the only time in his life ﷺ that he prayed a full rak'ah led by a companion. During these days the companion Abdullah Dhu al-Bijadayn RA also died, and the Prophet ﷺ buried him with his own hands (see the separate event on his death and burial). The hadith literature also dates several fiqh rulings to Tabuk. One is that washing each limb once in wudu is enough when water is scarce. Another is that the Prophet ﷺ prayed with a sutrah roughly the size of a camel's saddle. A third is that he ﷺ combined salahs only while actually on the move, and not once he had settled, even briefly. He had done the same at the Conquest of Makkah the year before. At Tabuk he still prayed qasr for the whole twenty days, but he did not combine. The last is that the skin of a dead animal becomes pure, and so usable, once it is tanned. On the return march, the army passed through al-Hijr. These are the rock-carved dwellings of the ancient people of Thamud and of Prophet Saleh AS (see the separate event on passing by al-Hijr). At one point the animals grew too weak to carry the army. The Prophet ﷺ made a du'a over them, and they were strengthened. Decades later, at the Muslim conquest of Cyprus in 28 AH, the companion Fudala RA recognised that this du'a had been fulfilled. When water ran short, the Prophet ﷺ prayed for rain. After a night of rain, he gave a khutbah. In it he contrasted the believers, who credited the rain to Allah, with the hypocrites, who credited it to a star. Then the Prophet ﷺ's own camel went missing. A hypocrite mocked him ﷺ, saying that he claimed revelation from heaven yet did not know where his own camel was. The Prophet ﷺ then announced, through revelation, exactly where the camel was, and it was found there. A companion who learned who had made the mocking remark expelled the man from his unit. Elsewhere on the march, some hypocrites mocked the Prophet ﷺ's prophecies that Rome and Persia would be conquered. They were exposed when Qur'an 9:64-66 was revealed. The verses quoted the mocker's excuse before he could even finish giving it (see the separate event on the munafiqun's mockery). Separately, a group of some fourteen or fifteen hypocrites made a sudden, unplanned attempt to throw the Prophet ﷺ off a cliff at night. His own evasive action foiled them. Ammar ibn Yasir RA and Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman RA were watching, but did not realise what was happening (see the separate event on the assassination attempt). The army finally returned to Madinah after some fifty to sixty days away. The city's women and children came out to greet it at Thaniyat al-Wada'. Among them was the companion al-Sa'ib RA, who was then a child. This welcome is popularly linked to the Hijrah, but Sh. Yasir Qadhi and others hold that it belongs here instead (see the separate event on the return to Madinah). Also on the return march, one of the munafiqs was reported to have said that if Islam were true, it would mean that they themselves were more misguided than donkeys. He then swore under oath that he had never said it. Allah exposed the lie in Surat al-Tawba (Qur'an 9:74). Other hypocrites, who had stayed behind, told one another, "Do not march forth in the heat." The same surah replied that the Fire of Hell is far hotter (Qur'an 9:81-82). There is also a popular story that is widely repeated as the reason Qur'an 9:75-77 was revealed. In it, a named sahabi begs the Prophet ﷺ for wealth and promises to become generous. Once Allah grants him riches, he turns stingy. Later he repents, but his charity is refused. Sh. Yasir Qadhi rejects this story as unreliable. Its chain is weak, and it also has the Prophet ﷺ refusing the charity of a man who had repented. That contradicts the Qur'an's own teaching that Allah accepts repentance. The verses instead describe the hypocrites in general. Some of them vowed to give charity if they were made wealthy, then grew stingy once Allah provided for them.