In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

The Sixth Year after the Hijrah

Al-Bakkāʾī narrates from Ibn Isḥāq: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, remained in Medina throughout Dhū al-Ḥijjah, Muḥarram, Ṣafar, and the two months of Rabīʿ. In Jumādā al-Ūlā he set out against Banū Lihyān to avenge the men of al-Rajīʿ—Khubaib ibn ʿAdiyy and his companions. To catch the tribe unawares, he let it be known that he was heading for Syria. When he arrived, however, he found that they had already taken warning and were holding the mountain peaks in force. He then said, “If we descend to ʿUsfān, the people of Mecca will know that we have come near them.” Accordingly, he went down with two hundred mounted Companions and camped at ʿUsfān. From there he dispatched two horsemen who rode as far as Kurāʿ al-Ghamīm, then turned back, and the Prophet returned to Medina.

The Expedition of Dhī Qarad

After only a few nights in Medina, ʿUyaynah ibn Ḥiṣn, leading a cavalry detachment from Ghatafān, raided the Prophet’s milch camels at al-Ghābah. With the herd were a man from Banū Ghifār and a woman. They killed the man and drove off the woman together with the camels.

The first person to notice them was Salamah ibn al-Akwaʿ. At dawn he had set out toward al-Ghābah, accompanied by a slave boy of Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd Allah who was mounted on Ṭalḥah’s horse. When they reached the rise of Thaniyyat al-Wadāʿ, he looked and saw