Abū al-Ḥaysar Anas ibn Rāfiʿ thereupon scooped up a handful of the valley’s gravel and flung it into the face of Iyās ibn Muʿādh, saying, “Leave us be; by my life, we have come for something other than this.” Iyās fell silent, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ rose and left them. They returned to Madinah, and soon afterwards the battle of Buʿāth broke out between the Aws and the Khazraj.
Not long after that Iyās ibn Muʿādh died. Maḥmūd ibn Labīd relates: Those of his clan who were present at his passing told me that they kept hearing him declare Allah’s oneness, magnify Him, praise Him, and glorify Him until he breathed his last. They had no doubt that he died a Muslim, for Islam had taken root in his heart during that very gathering when he heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ what he heard.
I say: The day of Buʿāth—Buʿāth being a locality in Madinah—was a great battle in which many of the nobles and chieftains of the Aws and the Khazraj were slain, leaving but a few of their elders alive.
Al-Bukhārī records in his Ṣaḥīḥ—through ʿUbayd ibn Ismāʿīl, Abū Usāmah, Hishām, and his father—from ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) who said: “The day of Buʿāth was a day Allah had prepared for His Messenger; when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ arrived in Madinah, their chiefs were divided and their nobles had been killed.”
Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī, in his work Proofs of Prophethood, in the chapter on the Islam of Rāfiʿ ibn Mālik and Muʿādh ibn ʿAfrāʾ, reports: Ibrāhīm ibn Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad ibn Hāniʾ al-Shajarī narrated to us; my father narrated from Ibn Isḥāq, who said: ʿUbayd ibn Yaḥyā related to me from Muʿādh ibn Rifāʿah ibn Rāfiʿ, from his father, from his grandfather, that he and his cousin Muʿādh ibn ʿAfrāʾ set out until they reached Mecca. When they descended the mountain pass they saw a man sitting beneath a tree—he added: this was before the departure of the six Ansar
(1) In the Ṭ edition it reads “ḥaḍarnī,” in H “ḥaḍara,” and this reading is confirmed by Ibn Hishām’s Sīrah and al-Rawḍ.
(2) Fath al-Bārī (no. 3777), Book of the Virtues of the Anṣār, chapter “Virtues of the Anṣār.”
(3) In Ṭ: “from Abū Umāmah,” a copyist’s error; the correct reading is confirmed by H and by al-Fath’s commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
(4) Both in H and in Ṭ it reads “qaddama,” a reading validated by Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
(5) The term “al-malāʾ” here denotes the leading and noble members of the community. In Ṭ it appears as “qatala sirātahum” (“their leaders were killed”), in H as “qutilat sarātuhum,” the latter reading being confirmed by Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. Ibn Ḥajar notes (al-Fath, 7:111) that “sarātuhum” signifies “their elite”; “sarāwah” is the plural of “sirāh,” while “sarāt” is the plural of “sarī” (noble).
(6) From this point the Ṭ manuscript omits text, whereas H contains an addition concluding the chapter. This report also appears in al-Hakīm’s al-Mustadrak (4:149).
(7) In H the chain “Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā” is inverted; the correct order is that established above from al-Mustadrak (4:149), Tahdhīb al-Kamāl (2:230), al-Jarḥ wa’l-Taʿdīl (2:147), and other sources. (Bashshār)
(8) In H the nisba appears as “as-Sijjīzī,” whereas the correct form is as given above; he bore this nisba because he used to settle at Dhul-Ḥulayfah (see Ansāb al-S̱imʿānī 8:63; Tahdhīb al-Kamāl 2:231). Dhul-Ḥulayfah lies six miles from Medina and is today known as Biʾr ʿAlī. (Bashshār)
(9) The phrase “from Ibn Isḥāq” does not occur in al-Mustadrak; the reading adopted here—that of Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbbad al-Shujjārī from Ibn Isḥāq in al-Tirmidhī—is more accurate (see al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb 31:521). The alternative chain via ʿUbayd b. Yaḥyā is invalid. (Bashshār)
(10) In al-Mustadrak the name appears as “ʿAbd,” a corruption; the correct reading is given in Tahdhīb al-Kamāl (28:121). (Bashshār)