The Expedition of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq against the Banū Fazārah

Imām Aḥmad relates (1): Bahz narrated to us; ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār narrated to us; Iyās ibn Salamah narrated to us, saying, “My father told me:

We set out with Abū Bakr ibn Abī Quḥāfah, whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had appointed as our commander, and we marched against the Banū Fazārah. When we drew near their watering place, Abū Bakr ordered us to halt for the night. After we had performed the dawn prayer, he commanded us to launch the raid, and we struck at them at the water, killing those who confronted us.

Salamah continued: I then saw a band of people—women and children among them—heading toward the mountain while I was running after them. Fearing they would reach the mountain before me, I loosed an arrow that landed between them and the mountain. I rounded them up and drove them back to Abū Bakr at the water. Among them was a woman of Fazārah dressed in a coarse leather cloak, accompanied by a daughter who was one of the most beautiful women of the Arabs.

Abū Bakr allotted her daughter to me as my personal share. I did not lift her garment until we reached Madinah, nor did I touch her that night.

The next day I met the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in the market. He said to me, ‘O Salamah, give me the woman.’ I replied, ‘By Allah, O Messenger of Allah, she has pleased me, and I have not lifted her garment.’ The Messenger of Allah ﷺ fell silent and left me.

The following day he again met me in the market and said, ‘O Salamah, give me the woman—may your father be ransomed!’ I said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, by Allah she has pleased me, and I have not lifted her garment. She is yours, O Messenger of Allah.’

The Prophet ﷺ then sent her to the people of Mecca, who were holding Muslim captives, and he ransomed those captives with that woman.

This report is also transmitted by Muslim and al-Bayhaqī (3) through the narration of ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār.

The Expedition of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him, to Turabah in the territory of Hawāzin, four miles beyond Mecca

Al-Bayhaqī (4), citing al-Wāqidī with his chains of transmission, records that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ dispatched ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him, at the head of thirty mounted men, accompanied by a guide from Banū Hilāl. They would travel by night and lie low during the day. When they reached the tribe’s land, its people fled, and ʿUmar turned back to Madinah.

He was asked, ‘Would you like to engage Khathʿam in battle?’ He replied, ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ ordered me only to fight Hawāzin in their own land.’