—the Banū Kinānah, or, according to another report, the Banū Juhaynah, as related by al-Wāqidī.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād transmitted from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, from Yazīd ibn Rawmān, from ʿUrwah, who said: When the Prophet ﷺ arrived in Madinah, the very first standard he fastened was that of ʿUbaydah ibn al-Ḥārith.

In that same year the Prophet ﷺ established a pact of brotherhood between the Emigrants and the Helpers, binding them to mutual support and justice.

Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī relates—through Sulaymān ibn Muʿādh, from Samāk, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ paired the Emigrants and the Helpers as brothers, and they used to inherit from one another until the verse was revealed: “And those of blood relations are nearer to one another [in inheritance]” (Qur’an 8:75).

The reason so few Muslims died in this and the immediately following years is that their overall numbers were still small. At that stage Islam was confined to parts of the Ḥijāz and to those who had migrated to Abyssinia. During the caliphate of ʿUmar—indeed, even slightly before—Islam spread throughout the provinces. This explains the small number of deaths in the earliest period of Islam and the far greater number recorded among the Successors (tābiʿūn) and those who came after them.

At about this time there lived Abū Qays ibn al-Aslat ibn Jusham ibn Wāʾil al-Awsī, the poet who rivalled Qays ibn al-Khaṭīm in courage and verse. He urged the Aws to embrace Islam. Even before the Hijrah he had turned away from idolatry, claimed adherence to the ḥanīfiyyah, and exhorted Quraysh to accept Islam. In his celebrated poem he said—opening with the lines:

O rider, if your path should lead you there, then convey
A swift-borne message from me to Luʾayy ibn Ghālib