The Military Expedition of Muhammad ibn Maslamah In the sixth year after the Hijrah, that year was known as the “Year of the Expeditions”, because during only 11 months, the Prophet ﷺ sent out 16 military expeditions, and he personally went out with them more than once. This means that, on average, there was a military expedition every 20 days. Some of these expeditions involved clashes, resulting in some deaths and injuries, while others ended without any fighting. The purpose of these expeditions was to frighten the Bedouins and enemies who continued to challenge the Muslims and form alliances against them in order to harm them—including some of those who had participated in the army of the Confederates when they attacked Medina. One of these was the expedition of Muhammad ibn Maslamah to Banu al-Qurata, consisting of 30 horsemen. When the expedition ended with Banu al-Qurata fleeing, the Muslims were returning to Medina when Muhammad ibn Maslamah saw a rider racing along the road. He assumed that the man was one of those who had fled. The Muslims approached him and took him prisoner, but the Companions did not know who he was. The man did not identify himself or speak to them. The reason was that, among the Arabs at that time, there was a strong sense of pride and dignity, and they would not accept humiliation. So the man refused to reveal his identity, and the Companions took him prisoner without knowing who he was. When they brought him to Medina, he was the only prisoner with them. When the Prophet ﷺ saw him, he recognized him. He said to his Companions: “Do you know who this man is?” They said: “No, O Messenger of Allah.” He said: “This is Thumamah ibn Uthal, the chief of Banu Hanifah. Treat him well.” The Companions tied Thumamah to one of the pillars of the mosque. The Prophet ﷺ then went to one of his homes and said to his family: “Gather whatever food you have and send it to him.” Then the Prophet ﷺ passed by him and said: “What do you have to say, O Thumamah?” Thumamah replied: “I have good things to say, O Muhammad. If you kill me, you will have killed a man whose blood will be avenged”—meaning, if you kill me, I am the chief of my people, and my people will come seeking revenge. “And if you show me kindness, you will be showing kindness to one who is grateful.” Meaning: if you spare me and treat me kindly, you will find me grateful for your favor. “And if you want money, ask for whatever you wish.” Because he was the chief of his people and possessed considerable wealth. The Prophet ﷺ left him and did not speak to him further. On the second day, the Prophet ﷺ passed by him and said: “What do you have to say, O Thumamah?” Thumamah replied: “I have good things to say, O Muhammad. If you kill me, you will have killed a man whose blood will be avenged. If you show me kindness, you will be showing kindness to one who is grateful. And if you want money, ask for whatever you wish.” The Prophet ﷺ left him and did not speak to him further. On the third day, the Prophet ﷺ passed by him and said: “What do you have to say, O Thumamah?” Thumamah replied: “You have from me what I told you yesterday.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ deliberately left him in the mosque for three days so that he could hear Bilal calling the prayer, see how the Muslims gathered for prayer, hear the Qur’an as the Prophet ﷺ led them in prayer, and observe how they treated one another—with love, affection, mercy, and equality. He could also hear the Prophet ﷺ speaking about Allah Almighty, His beauty, greatness, and mercy, and about the true nature of this worldly life. Then the Prophet ﷺ said to his Companions: “Release Thumamah.” He released him without asking him for a ransom, even though Thumamah had offered to pay a large ransom for himself. The Prophet ﷺ hoped that Thumamah would embrace Islam. When Thumamah was released, he went near the mosque, entered among the palm trees and other trees, and washed himself. Then he entered the mosque and stood in the middle of it, while the Prophet ﷺ was sitting among his Companions. He said: “O Muhammad! By Allah, there was no face on the entire earth that I hated more than your face, but now your face has become the most beloved of all faces to me, O Muhammad! By Allah, there was no religion on the entire earth that I hated more than your religion, but now your religion has become the most beloved of all religions to me, O Muhammad! By Allah, there was no land on the entire earth that I hated more than your land, but now your land has become the most beloved of all lands to me. O Muhammad, I declare before everyone, without being forced, that I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah.” The Prophet ﷺ was delighted by his conversion to Islam because Thumamah was the chief of his people, and people often followed their leaders. The Prophet ﷺ instructed his Companions to teach him the Qur’an and help him understand the religion. After he had spent several days with them, he said to the Prophet ﷺ: “O Messenger of Allah, your horsemen captured me while I was on my way to perform Umrah.” Meaning: when your Companions captured me, I was on my way to perform Umrah, and at that time the Kaaba was not yet under Muslim control; it was controlled by Quraysh. “What do you think, O Messenger of Allah? Will you give me permission to perform Umrah now?” The Prophet ﷺ gave him permission and prayed for him. So Thumamah, the chief of Banu Hanifah, set out to perform Umrah. He entered Mecca and raised his voice with the Talbiyah—saying, “Labbayka Allahumma Labbayk”—and no Muslim before him had done so publicly. He was the first to perform Umrah and raise his voice with the Talbiyah publicly, whereas Sa’d ibn Mu’adh had performed Umrah before him secretly, without raising his voice. Thumamah performed Umrah loudly, so that Quraysh could hear him. They left him alone until he completed his Umrah. He performed Tawaf and Sa’i, and then they seized him. He said: “I have accepted Islam with Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah.” They said: “Have you come here to provoke us by reciting Muhammad’s Talbiyah?” Quraysh then brought him forward intending to kill him. But one of the Quraysh men stood up and said: “Woe to you! Have you forgotten that he is the chief of Banu Hanifah? And where do you get your grain and the fodder for your livestock? Where do you get this and that?” He began listing all the goods from Al-Yamamah that came to Mecca during their trading journeys. So they stopped themselves from punishing Thumamah. But Thumamah stood in the courtyard of the Kaaba and declared, swearing by Allah: “No, by Allah! I swear by the Lord of this House: not a single grain of wheat will reach you until the Prophet gives permission.” Then he left them. He kept his oath and ordered his people in Al-Yamamah to stop sending anything to Quraysh. He also forbade any merchant in Mecca from entering Al-Yamamah. Al-Yamamah was the agricultural region that supplied Mecca. Thumamah ordered his people to boycott Quraysh. Thus, he became the first person in Islam to impose an economic boycott. Quraysh suffered greatly, and conditions in Mecca became extremely difficult because of the boycott. Eventually, Quraysh wrote to the Prophet ﷺ, appealing to him through their ties of kinship, asking him to write to Thumamah and tell him to allow food supplies to be sent to Mecca. Abu Sufyan sent a message to the Prophet ﷺ saying: “O Muhammad, you claim that Allah sent you as a mercy to all the worlds, and that you command people to maintain ties of kinship. Yet we have seen nothing of your mercy except the sword. Now you have cut off your own relatives in Mecca, because one of your Companions has prevented them from receiving their food. The children are hungry and the elderly are suffering.” Because of the Prophet’s ﷺ noble character, he sent word to Thumamah telling him not to withhold any of the produce of Al-Yamamah from Mecca, and to let matters return to the way they had been before his conversion to Islam. This was despite the fact that Quraysh had previously besieged the Muslims in the Valley of Abu Talib for three full years, until the Muslims were forced to eat tree leaves. Yet the Prophet ﷺ did not want Quraysh to go hungry, nor did he want the elderly, women, and children to suffer. When Thumamah saw how the Prophet ﷺ treated Quraysh—despite the fact that they had recently united against him and gathered the Confederates to attack him—he was deeply moved by the Prophet’s character. Thumamah then called his people to Islam, and they accepted Islam. After Thumamah’s people converted, a poet from Banu Hanifah, proud of the conversion of their leader Thumamah, who had been the first to raise his voice with the Talbiyah in Mecca, said: “Among us is the one who proclaimed the Talbiyah in Mecca, despite Abu Sufyan, during the sacred months.” Several months after Thumamah’s conversion, news spread among the Arabs about how kindly the Prophet ﷺ had treated him. They began to think that the Muslims would forgive them and forget what they had done to them. Then men from the two tribes of ’Ukl and ’Uraynah came and announced their conversion to Islam in the Prophet’s mosque, pledging allegiance to him to hear and obey. When the Prophet ﷺ looked at them, he found their faces pale and their bodies weak and thin, and they were not suited to the climate of Medina. So he ordered them to go to the charity camels—camels that grazed outside Medina in the open air—and instructed them to drink their milk. However, these men were merely pretending to be Muslims. They were liars and hypocrites. When they recovered and their bodies became strong, they attacked the camel herder, who was a Muslim from Medina. They tortured and mutilated him. They cut off his hand and foot, gouged out his eyes, and drove thorns into his tongue. Then they threw him into Al-Harrah, an area of rough volcanic land, took all the charity camels, and fled. When the Prophet ﷺ was informed of this, he sent one of his Companions after them—a man who was an exceptionally fast runner who could not be outrun, and an excellent archer who did not miss. His name was Kurz ibn Jabir al-Fihri. The Prophet ﷺ sent 20 Companions with him and ordered him to pursue them and bring them back to Medina alive, without killing them. They caught up with them on the road, surrounded them, captured them, tied them up, and placed them on horseback until they brought them back to Medina. The Prophet ﷺ ordered that they be dealt with in the same manner as they had dealt with the camel herder. Allah then revealed a verse supporting the ruling: “The penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land is that they be killed, crucified, have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace in this world, and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.” — Qur’an 5:33 Thus, the Arabs around Medina came to understand that the Prophet ﷺ and the Muslims showed generosity and mercy when it was appropriate, and firmness and severity when it was appropriate. Muhammad ﷺ did not treat everyone in exactly the same way. Each person was treated according to what they had done.