Tabuk, advancing and not in retreat.

This report is singular, classed among the isolated traditions.

Abū ʿUbaydah Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā said: In that same year the Persians killed their king Shahrbarāz ibn Shīrawayh and enthroned Būrān, daughter of Kisrā, over them. When this news reached the Prophet ﷺ he said, “A people who place their affairs in the hands of a woman will never prosper.”

That year ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿd ibn Sufyān al-Anṣārī of the Banū Sālim ibn ʿAwf—whose honorific was Abū Saʿd—also died. He had fought at Uhud and in the later campaigns. He passed away as the Prophet ﷺ was returning from Tabuk, and it is said that the Prophet ﷺ wrapped him in his own shirt for the burial shroud.

During this same period Zayd ibn Muhalhil ibn Zayd, Abū Muknaf al-Ṭāʾī, the champion horseman of Ṭayy, died. He was one of those whose hearts had been reconciled; the Prophet ﷺ had given him one hundred camels and written him a land grant. He had been known as Zayd al-Khayl (“Zayd of the Steeds”),

whereupon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ renamed him Zayd al-Khair (“Zayd of Goodness”). As he set out to return to his people, the Prophet ﷺ said, “If Zayd escapes the fever of Madinah….” Yet when he reached Najd the fever overtook him and he died.

In that year Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq—may Allah be pleased with him—led the people in the pilgrimage. The Prophet ﷺ had dispatched him at the end of Dhu al-Qaʿdah to conduct the Muslims’ ḥajj. After he had left, the opening of Sūrat Barāʾah (9:1) was revealed.

The very beginning of the sūrah revoked the pact that had existed between the Prophet ﷺ and the polytheists.

Ibn Isḥāq relates: ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—rode out on the Prophet’s camel al-ʿAḍbāʾ until he caught up with Abū Bakr on the road. When Abū Bakr saw him he asked, “Are you coming as commander or as one under command?” He replied, “No, rather as one under command.” They then continued on together. Abū Bakr supervised the people’s pilgrimage, and when the Day of Sacrifice arrived ʿAlī stood at the Jamrah and proclaimed to the people what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had ordered him to announce, saying, “O people, henceforth no polytheist shall enter….”