Zayd ibn Arqam was asked, “How many military expeditions did the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—undertake?” He replied, “Nineteen.” He was then asked, “How many of those did you accompany him on?” He said, “Seventeen.” I asked, “Which one was the first?” He answered, “Al-ʿUshir, or al-ʿUsayrah.” I mentioned this to Qatādah, and he said, “Al-ʿUshayrah.” On its face, this ḥadīth indicates that the first campaign was al-ʿUshayrah; the name, however, is also pronounced with a sīn, or with the tāʾ dropped, or with an elongated vowel. It is possible, though, that the intention is: the first expedition Zayd ibn Arqam personally witnessed with the Prophet ﷺ was al-ʿUshayrah. If so, this would not rule out earlier campaigns that Zayd did not attend, thereby reconciling Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq’s account with this report. Allah knows best.

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq also said: On that occasion the Messenger of Allah ﷺ addressed ʿAlī with the words that follow. Yazīd ibn Muḥammad ibn Khuthaym related to me—from Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb al-Qurazī—that Abū Yazīd Muḥammad ibn Khuthaym narrated to me from ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, who said:

“I and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib were paired together in the Expedition of al-ʿUshayrah in the valley of Yanbuʿ. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ encamped there, he remained for a month, during which he made peace with Banū Mudlij and their allies from Banū Ḍumrah, agreeing to a truce with them. ʿAlī then said to me, ‘Abū al-Yaqẓān, would you like to go over to those men of Banū Mudlij who are working at their spring and watch what they are doing?’ We went and observed them for a while, until sleep overcame us. We lay down in a small enclosure of date-palms on a patch of soft earth and fell asleep. By Allah, nothing woke us except the Messenger of Allah ﷺ [gently rousing us] with his foot. We sat up, covered in dust from that sandy ground, and on that day the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to ʿAlī, ‘O Abū Turāb,’ because of the dust upon him. When we told him what had happened, he said:

‘Shall I not tell you who the two most wretched of all people are?’

We replied, ‘Yes, O Messenger of Allah.’

He said, ‘The fair-skinned man of Thamūd who hamstrung the she-camel, and the one who will strike you, O ʿAlī, on this’—placing his hand on his head—‘until this is drenched,’ and he placed his hand on his beard.”

This narration is gharīb through this particular chain, yet it has corroboration concerning ʿAlī’s nickname Abū Turāb. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī it is related that ʿAlī, after a disagreement with Fāṭimah, went to the mosque and lay down there. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ entered and asked her about him, and she said, “He left angry and went to the mosque.” He then went to the mosque, woke ʿAlī, and began brushing the dust from him, saying, “Get up, Abū Turāb! Get up, Abū Turāb!”