The idolaters said to the Muslims, “You have shed blood during the Sacred Month.” Thereupon Allah revealed: “They ask you about the Sacred Month and fighting therein. Say: ‘Fighting therein is a grave offense…’” (al-Baqarah, 2:217).

Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Suddi the Elder said in his Tafsīr(1), on the authority of Abū Mālik and Abū Ṣāliḥ from Ibn ʿAbbās, and of Murrah from Ibn Masʿūd, as well as from a group of the Companions: the words, “They ask you about the Sacred Month and fighting therein…” were revealed because the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent out a detachment of seven men under the command of ʿAbd Allah ibn Jahsh. Among them were ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, Abū Hudhayfah ibn ʿUtbah, Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, ʿUtbah ibn Ghazwān, Sahl ibn Bayḍāʾ, ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah, and Wāqid ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Yarbuʿī, an ally of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb. He wrote a letter for Ibn Jahsh and ordered him not to read it until he had reached the valley of Malal(2). When he reached that valley he opened the letter and found the instruction: “Proceed until you halt in the valley of Nakhlah.”

He then said to his companions, “Whoever desires death (i.e., martyrdom), let him go forward and make his testament, for I have made mine and I am proceeding in obedience to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.” He set out, while Saʿd and ʿUtbah remained behind because their mount had strayed; they stayed behind to look for it. He and the rest continued until they reached the valley of Nakhlah, where they encountered al-Ḥakam ibn Kaysān, al-Mughīrah ibn ʿUthmān, and ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mughīrah. Wāqid thereupon killed ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥaḍramī, and they returned with the booty and the two prisoners—this was the first booty the Muslims ever obtained.

The idolaters said, “Muhammad claims that he obeys Allah, yet he is the first to violate the Sacred Month and has killed our man in Rajab.” The Muslims replied, “We killed him only in Jumādā.”

Al-Suddi said: “They killed him on the first night of Rajab, which was the last night of Jumādā al-Ākhirah.”

I say: Perhaps Jumādā was a twenty-nine-day month, so they assumed a thirtieth night remained, whereas the new moon had actually been sighted that evening. Allah knows best.

Al-ʿAwfī likewise transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās that the incident occurred on the last night of Jumādā and the first night of Rajab without their realizing it(3). The same point appears earlier in the hadith of Jundub narrated by Ibn Abī Ḥātim. It is also found in Ibn Isḥāq’s version that the event took place on the last night of Rajab; fearing that, if they did not seize this booty and take advantage of the opportunity, the men would enter the Sanctuary and it would then become impossible to act, they attacked them fully aware of that circumstance.