“The people at this market will go home with something far worse than what you will take back at the outset; (1) you will end up challenging everyone, and the Arabs will shoot at you with a single bow. His own tribe know him best—had they seen any good in him, they would have been the first to rejoice in him. Will you really take under your wing the cast-off (2) of a people, a man whom his own folk have expelled and branded a liar, shelter him, and give him victory? What a wretched choice you are making!”

He then turned to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, “Get up and return to your people. By Allah, were it not that you are now among my people, I would strike off your neck.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ rose, went to his she-camel, and mounted it. The wretch Bayḥarah prodded the animal’s flank, so it bucked (3) and threw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to the ground.

Present that day among Banū ʿĀmir was Ḍubāʿah bint ʿĀmir ibn Qurṭ, one of the women who had embraced Islam with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in Mecca. She had come to visit her cousins and cried out, “O clan of ʿĀmir—though ʿĀmir means nothing to me—shall this be done to the Messenger of Allah in your midst and no one of you shields him?”

Three of her kinsmen rose against Bayḥarah, aided by two others. Each of the three seized a man, slammed him to the ground, sat upon his chest, and then began striking his face.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “O Allah, bless these men and curse those men!”

The three who had helped him later accepted Islam and were martyred; they were Ghuṭayf and Ghaṭfān, the sons of Sahl, (4) and ʿUrwah—or ʿUdhrah (5)—ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salamah, may Allah be pleased with them.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Saʿīd ibn Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Umawī has transmitted this report in full in his Maghāzī, on the authority of his father.

The others perished under a curse—Bayḥarah ibn Firās, Ḥazn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salamah ibn Qushayr, and Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿUbādah of Banū ʿAqīl—may Allah curse them abundantly. This is an unusual report which we have recorded because of its rarity; Allah knows best. (6)

Abū Nuʿaym has supplied a corroborating narration through Kaʿb ibn Mālik (may Allah be pleased with him) concerning the story of ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿah and their disgraceful rejection of him. Stranger still—and longer—is what Abū Nuʿaym, al-Ḥākim, and al-Bayhaqī relate (7)—the wording belongs to Abū Nuʿaym—from Abān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Bajalī, from Abān ibn Taghlib, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās:

ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may Allah be pleased with him) told me: “When Allah commanded His Messenger ﷺ to present himself to the Arab tribes, he went out—with me and Abū Bakr accompanying him—to Minā until we reached one of the Arab assemblies. Abū Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him), who was always foremost in every good and was a master genealogist, stepped forward, greeted them, and said, ‘Which people are you?’

They replied, ‘We are of Rabīʿah.’

He asked, ‘Which branch of Rabīʿah …’”