At al-‘Aqabah there were seventy men,¹ and their deputies numbered twelve: nine from the Khazraj and three from the Aws. An elder from the Anṣār told me that Gabriel—peace be upon him—pointed out to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ whom he should appoint a deputy on the night of al-‘Aqabah, and that Usayd ibn Ḥuḍayr was one of those deputies. Al-Bayhaqī related this.²

Ibn Isḥāq³ said: ‘ʿAbd Allah ibn Abī Bakr told me that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to the deputies: “You are guarantors for your people in all that concerns them, just as the disciples were guarantors for Jesus son of Mary; and I am a guarantor for my people.” They replied, “Yes.”’

ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatādah narrated to me that when the company gathered to pledge allegiance to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿUbādah ibn Naḍlah al-Anṣārī—of Banū Sālim ibn ʿAwf—said: ‘O company of Khazraj, do you know to what you are pledging yourselves with this man?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You are pledging yourselves to wage war against the red and the black of mankind. If you think that, once your wealth has been exhausted and your nobles killed, you will then abandon him, do so now—for by Allah, if you do, it will be the disgrace of this world and the Hereafter. But if you believe that you will fulfil what you are inviting him to, despite the depletion of wealth and the killing of nobles, then take him; for by Allah, that is better for you in this world and the next.’

They said, ‘We will take him even at the cost of losing wealth and seeing our nobles killed. What shall we have for that, O Messenger of Allah, if we keep faith?’ He replied, ‘Paradise.’ They said, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched out his hand, and they pledged allegiance to him.

ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatādah said: ‘Al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿUbādah said that only to bind the covenant firmly upon their necks.’

ʿAbd Allah ibn Abī Bakr claimed that he said it merely to postpone the pledge that night, hoping that ʿAbd Allah ibn Ubayy ibn Salūl, the chief of the Khazraj, might attend and thus strengthen the people’s resolve; Allah knows best which of the two it was.

Ibn Isḥāq⁵ said: ‘The Banū al-Najjār maintain that Abū Umāmah Asʿad ibn Zurārah was the first to place his hand on his, while the Banū ʿAbd al-Ashhal say it was Abū al-Haytham ibn al-Tayyihān.’

Ibn Isḥāq⁶ also said: ‘Maʿbad ibn Kaʿb related to me, from his brother ʿAbd Allah, from his father Kaʿb ibn Mālik, who said: “The first to place his hand in the hand of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was al-Barāʾ ibn Maʿrūr; then the people pledged allegiance.”’

Ibn al-Athīr said in Usd al-Ghābah⁷: ‘The Banū Salamah claim that the first to pledge allegiance that night was Kaʿb ibn Mālik.’

And it is established in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Muslim⁸ in the ḥadīth of al-Zuhrī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Kaʿb,