In that year, he sent Dihyah al-Kalbī with his letter to Caesar, ruler of the Byzantines.

In that year, he sent Zayd ibn Hārithah with five hundred mounted men against those who had attacked Dihyah.

In that year, he sent ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hadrad al-Aslamī and two other men to al-Ghābah, eight miles from Medina, after learning that Rifāʿah Qays intended to gather an army to fight the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him. They lay in ambush for him, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hadrad shot him with an arrow and killed him.

In that year, Zayd ibn Hārithah led an expedition to al-Taraf, towards the road to Iraq. He returned without encountering any hostility.

In that year, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, had the pulpit made, though it is also said that this occurred in the eighth year. Mālik said, “Its wood came from the tamarisk trees of al-Ghābah, and a slave belonging to Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah made it for him.” It is also said that the craftsman was a slave belonging to a woman of the Ansār, or a slave belonging to al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muttalib. Perhaps they all worked together to make it. When the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, delivered a sermon from it, the palm trunk on which he had previously stood to deliver his sermons moaned until the mosque shook. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, placed his hand upon it, and it fell silent.

[The Eighth Year]

Then came the eighth year. In that year, the expedition to Muʾtah took place. In Jumādā al-Ūlā of that year, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, dispatched the commanders to Syria, placing his freedman Zayd ibn Hārithah in command of the army. He said, “If he is killed”—or he said, “If he falls”—“then Jaʿfar ibn Abī Tālib shall command the men; if he is killed, then ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāhah.” The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, accompanied them as they set out and bade them farewell, then returned.

They proceeded until they reached a place in Syria, where news came to them that Heraclius, emperor of the Byzantines, had encamped in the region of al-Balqāʾ with one hundred thousand Byzantines and another hundred thousand Christian Arabs from the people of al-Balqāʾ: Lakhm, Judhām and the tribes of Qudāʿah. They resolved to press on, saying, “It can only be one of the two good outcomes,” after initially hesitating and considering writing to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, about the Byzantine forces they had learned of. They met them at a village called Muʾtah,