5.1
ʿAbd al-Razzāq, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of al-Zuhrī, on the authority of ʿAmr ibn Abī Sufyān al-Thaqafī, on the authority of Abū Hurayrah, who said:
5.1.1
The Messenger of God dispatched a scouting expedition and appointed over them as commander ʿĀṣim ibn Thābit, who is also the grandfather of ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar. They set out and eventually made camp along the route between ʿUsfān and Mecca. Word of their whereabouts reached a clan of the Hudhayl tribe called the Liḥyān, and the Liḥyān pursued them with around a hundred archers. Once they had caught sight of their tracks, they alighted at a campsite they spotted. There they found date pits that they recognized as being from Yathrib. “This is a date from Yathrib!” they exclaimed and followed their tracks until they caught up with them. When ʿĀṣim ibn Thābit and his companions caught sight of them, they fled to a patch of high ground in the desert waste. The Liḥyānīs came and surrounded them, saying, “If you surrender to us, you’ll have our oath and pledge that not one of your men will be killed.” ʿĀṣim ibn Thābit replied, “As for me, I’ll never surrender to the protection of an infidel! O Lord, inform your Messenger of our plight!”
5.1.2
The Liḥyānīs fought them and eventually succeeded in killing ʿĀṣim and six others. Khubayb ibn ʿAdī, Zayd ibn Dathinnah, and another man survived, and the Liḥyānīs offered them their oath and pledge of safety if they surrendered. Thus they surrendered. When the Liḥyānīs had seized them, they unfastened their bowstrings and used them to tie the men up. The third man alongside Khubayb and Zayd said, “This is only the first act of treachery.” He refused to accompany his captors, so they dragged him. He still refused to follow them, saying, “My lot is with the slain.” So they beheaded him and set off with Khubayb ibn ʿAdī and Zayd ibn Dathinnah, whom they sold as slaves in Mecca.
5.1.3
The sons of al-Ḥārith ibn ʿĀmir ibn Nawfal purchased Khubayb because he had killed their father al-Ḥārith at the Battle of Badr. He remained with them as a captive until they had all agreed to kill him. While captive, Khubayb asked to borrow a razor from one of al-Ḥārith’s daughters for trimming his pubic hair,90 and she loaned him one. She said, “I had lost track of one of my boys, who tiptoed his way around to Khubayb. He lifted the boy up and placed him on his lap. When I saw him with the razor in his hand, I had quite a fright, which he noticed. ‘Are you afraid I’ll kill him?’ he asked. ‘I would never do such a thing, God willing!’” She continued, “I never saw a captive as virtuous as Khubayb. Indeed, I saw him eating from a bunch of grapes, even though in that season there was no fruit in Mecca and he was still shackled in irons. It was nothing less than a gift of sustenance granted him by God.”
5.1.4
Afterward, the sons of al-Ḥārith took Khubayb out of the Sacred Precincts to kill him.91 Khubayb said, “Allow me to do two prostrations’ worth of prayers,” which he did.92 Then he said, “I’ll pray no more, for otherwise you’ll suspect I fear death.” Thus Khubayb was the first to establish the precedent of undertaking two prostrations’ worth of prayers before facing execution. He said, “O Lord! Reckon well my killers’ number!”93 and recited:
’Tis no concern to be killed a Muslim;
whatever the cause, ’twas for God I struggled.
’Tis for God to decide, if He wills;
He blesses a body’s limbs even if mangled.
Then ʿUqbah ibn al-Ḥārith went over to him and slew him.
5.1.5
The Quraysh sent their messengers to obtain a piece of ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUqbah’s corpse and thus confirm his death—for ʿĀṣim had killed one of their greatest men—but God sent a swarm of bees as thick as a cloud to protect ʿĀṣim’s corpse from their messengers, and they were unable to acquire any part of his body.
5.2
ʿAbd al-Razzāq, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of ʿUthmān al-Jazarī, on the authority of Miqsam, the slave-client of Ibn ʿAbbās. Maʿmar said: and al-Zuhrī also related to me part of the narration:
5.2.1
ʿUqbah ibn Abī Muʿayṭ and Ubayy ibn Khalaf al-Jumaḥī once met together. The two were close friends during the Era of Ignorance, and Ubayy ibn Khalaf had just been with the Prophet, who had encouraged him to become a Muslim. When ʿUqbah heard about this, he said to Ubayy, “I won’t be able to stand the sight of you until you go to Muḥammad, spit in his face, curse him, and denounce him as a liar!” But God would not permit him to do such a thing.
5.2.2
At the battle of Badr, ʿUqbah ibn Abī Muʿayṭ was among the captives. The Prophet ordered ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib to kill him, and ʿUqbah cried out, “O Muḥammad! Am I alone to be killed of all these people?”
“Yes,” answered the Prophet.
“Why?” he asked.
The Prophet replied, “For your disbelief, your depravity, and your insolence toward God and his Messenger!”
5.3
Maʿmar said: Miqsam said:
It was reported to us—though God knows best—that ʿUqbah said: “But who will watch over my children?” And the Prophet replied, “Hellfire!” So ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib walked over to ʿUqbah and beheaded him.
As for Ubayy ibn Khalaf, he said, “By God, I will kill Muḥammad!” Word of this reached the Messenger of God, and he said, “Rather, I shall kill him, God willing.” A man who overheard the Prophet say this set out to find Ubayy ibn Khalaf. He said to Ubayy, “Indeed, when Muḥammad was told what you said, he replied, ‘Rather, I will kill him, God willing.’” That terrified Ubayy, who said, “I abjure you, by God! Did you really hear him say that?” “Yes,” the man replied, and the words pierced Ubayy’s heart, because no one had ever heard the Messenger of God speak a word that was not true. At the battle of Uḥud, Ubayy ibn Khalaf marched out with the Pagans, and he began to search for the Prophet to catch him unawares and attack him. A Muslim man barred the way between him and the Prophet, but when the Messenger of God saw this, he said to his companions, “Leave him to me!” The Prophet grabbed his lance and knocked Ubayy to ground—or he speared him with it, he said—and the lance lodged in his collar, right beneath the gorget of his helm and above his chainmail. There was not a lot of blood from the wound, because the blood filled his gut. He began bellowing like a bull, and his companions came forward and carried him away still bellowing. “What is this?” they said. “By God, you’ve merely been grazed!” Ubayy replied, “By God, he’d have killed me even if he had only hit me with his spittle! Did he not say, ‘I will kill him, God willing’? By God, were he to have struck the people at the market of Dhū l-Majāz with its like, he would have slain them all!”
Ubayy survived but a day, or nearly that, before he died, destined for Hell. Concerning him, God revealed:
«On that Day the evildoer will bite his own hand and say, “If only I had taken the same path as the Messenger. Woe is me! If only I had not taken so-and-so as a friend—he led me away from the Revelation after it reached me; Satan has always betrayed humankind.”»94