and said, “We have come to sell you some of our coats of mail so that we can live off the proceeds.” He replied, “By God, if you are prepared to do that, hardship must have overtaken you—this man has truly brought misery upon you.” He then arranged for them to meet him that evening, once the people had settled down.

They came and one of them called out to him. He rose to go out, but his wife said, “They would not call on you at this hour for something you would welcome.” He answered, “On the contrary—they have already told me what concerns them.”

Abū ʿAbs took hold of him, Muḥammad ibn Maslamah struck him with his sword, and another of them stabbed him in the side. When they had killed him, the Jews—and the idolaters allied with them—were thrown into turmoil. At daybreak they went to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, “Our companion, a chief among our leaders, was attacked in the night and killed.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ reminded them of what Kaʿb had been saying in his poems, and he invited them to have a document written between him and them; so a treaty was drafted. After the Prophet’s death, that document was kept by ʿAlī. Reported by Abū Dāwūd.

Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah and others related that ʿUbādah ibn Bishr was with the party and was struck on his face—or on his leg—with a sword.

Yūnus ibn Bukayr narrated from Ibn Isḥāq: Thawr ibn Zayd told me, on the authority of ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ went to Baqīʿ al-Gharqad and then sent them off, saying, “Go in the name of Allah; O Allah, support them.”

Al-Bakkāʾī transmitted from Ibn Isḥāq this episode in fuller form and more elegant style. He states that the men who united to kill him were Muḥammad, Salkān ibn Salāmah ibn Waqsh—better known as Abū Nāʾilah al-Ashhalī—ʿUbādah ibn Bishr, and Abū ʿAbs ibn Jabr al-Ḥārithī. They first put forward Salkān: he went to Kaʿb, conversed with him for a while, and the two exchanged verses of poetry. Then he said, “Woe to you, son of al-Ashraf! I have come to you with a need I wish to mention, so keep it to yourself.” “I will,” Kaʿb replied. “The arrival of this man …”