Muhammad ibn Maslamah rose and said, “O Messenger of Allah, would you like me to kill him?”
“Yes,” he replied.
Muhammad ibn Maslamah asked, “Then give me leave to say something to him.”
“Say what you wish,” the Prophet said.

Muhammad ibn Maslamah went to Kaʿb and said, “This man has asked us for charity and has burdened us. I have come to borrow something from you.”
Kaʿb answered, “By God, you will soon grow weary of him.”
Muhammad ibn Maslamah said, “We have followed him and do not wish to abandon him until we see how his affair turns out, but we would like you to lend us something.”
Kaʿb said, “Very well—give me a pledge.”
“I asked, ‘What do you want?’”
He said, “Pledge me your women.”
They replied, “How can we pledge you our women when you are the most handsome of the Arabs?”
He said, “Then pledge me your sons.”
They said, “How can we pledge you our sons? Someone might later revile one of them, saying, ‘He was put up for a load or two of grain’—that would be a disgrace to us. We shall instead pledge you our armor.”
Sufyān commented that “armor” here means their weapons.

They set an appointment for the night. Muhammad ibn Maslamah came at night accompanied by Abū Nāʿilah, Kaʿb’s foster-brother. Kaʿb invited them into the fortress and then descended to them.

His wife asked, “Where are you going at this hour?”
Another narrator reports that she said, “I hear a voice as though blood is dripping from it.”
He answered, “It is only my brother Muhammad ibn Maslamah and my foster-brother Abū Nāʿilah. A nobleman, if invited to a stab by night, would respond.”

Muhammad ibn Maslamah brought two other men with him. Someone asked Sufyān, “Did ʿAmr name them?” He replied, “He named some of them.” ʿAmr said that two men accompanied him, while another narrator says they were Abū ʿAbs ibn Jabr, al-Ḥārith ibn Aws, and ʿAbbād ibn Bishr.

ʿAmr continued: Muhammad ibn Maslamah told them, “When he comes, I shall grasp his hair to smell it; when you see me holding his head firmly, strike him.” On another occasion he said, “then I will let you smell it.”

Kaʿb came down to them wrapped in his cloak, the scent of perfume wafting from him.
Someone remarked, “I have never smelled fragrance like today”—meaning, finer.
Another narrator quotes Kaʿb as saying, “I keep the most fragrant women of the Arabs and I am myself the most handsome of the Arabs.”

ʿAmr said: Muhammad ibn Maslamah asked, “Do you allow me to smell your head?”
“Yes,” he answered, so he smelled it and let his companions smell it as well.
He asked again, “Do you permit me?” When Kaʿb agreed and he had a firm grip on him, he cried, “Have at him!” They struck and killed him, then went to the Prophet ﷺ and informed him.

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq relates: Part of the story of Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf—he was a man of Ṭayy from the clan of Banū Nabhān, and his mother was from Banū al-Naḍīr—is that when news of those slain at Badr reached him, as Zayd ibn Ḥārithah and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥah arrived, he said, “By God, if Muhammad has really killed those people, the belly of the earth is better than its surface.” When the enemy of Allah was certain of the news, he set out for Mecca and stayed with al-Muṭṭalib ibn Abī Wadaʿah ibn Ḍubayrah al-Sahmī. With him was ʿĀtikah bint Abī al-ʿĀṣ ibn Umayyah ibn ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manāf. She lodged and honored him, and he began inciting the Quraysh to fight the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, reciting poetry and lamenting those idolaters who had fallen at Badr.

Ibn Isḥāq cites his poem that begins:
“The mill-stone of Badr ground out the doom of its people;
For such a day as Badr the heavens weep and flow.”

He also records the rejoinder composed by Ḥassān ibn Thābit—may Allah be pleased with him—and others. Kaʿb then returned to Madinah, where he began flirting with the Muslim women and lampooning the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions.