with him. During the midday break he halted in a valley thick with ʿiḍāh trees. The people dismounted and spread out among the thickets to take shade, while he himself sat beneath a tree and hung his sword on a branch. We dozed off, and suddenly the Messenger of Allah was calling us. We answered his call and found a Bedouin sitting beside him. The Messenger of Allah said, “This man drew my sword while I was asleep. I awoke to find it unsheathed in his hand, and he said, ‘Who will protect you from me?’ I replied, ‘Allah.’ So he sheathed the sword and sat down.” The Messenger of Allah did not punish him for what he had done. This report is agreed upon. The verb shāma means “to return the sword to its scabbard.”
Abū ʿAwānah, citing Abū Bishr, said: The Bedouin’s name was Ghawrath ibn al-Ḥārith.
Abū Bishr also transmitted—through Sulaymān ibn Qays—from Jābir: The Messenger of Allah fought the clan of Muḥārib ibn Khaṣfah at Nakhl. Noticing an unguarded moment among the Muslims, a man of theirs named Ghawrath ibn al-Ḥārith came up and stood over the Messenger of Allah with a drawn sword. He said, “Who will protect you from me?” The Prophet replied, “Allah.” The sword fell from his hand, whereupon the Messenger of Allah picked it up and said, “And who will protect you from me?” The man pleaded, “Be the best of takers.” The Prophet asked, “Will you testify that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah?” He replied, “No, but I pledge that I will neither fight you nor join any people who fight you.” The Prophet set him free. He returned to his companions and said, “I have just come from the best of men!” Jābir then mentioned the Prayer of Fear, noting that the Prophet led each contingent in two cycles of prayer. This narration is sound, God willing.
Al-Bakkāʾī relates—from Ibn Isḥāq—who said: Wahb ibn Kaysān told me, on the authority of Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh: I set out with the Messenger of Allah on the expedition of Dhat al-Riqāʿ from Nakhl, mounted on a frail camel of mine. When the Messenger of Allah began the return journey, the companions