and one of them the Messenger of God ﷺ presented to Ḥassān ibn Thābit al-Anṣārī,¹ sending him, along with her, some of their precious adornments.

Ibn Isḥāq² relates that al-Muqawqis had in fact sent the Messenger of God ﷺ four maidservants: one was Māriyah, the mother of Ibrāhīm; another was Sirīn, whom he bestowed upon Ḥassān ibn Thābit, and she later bore him ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥassān.³

I add: Included among the gifts was a black eunuch youth named Mābūr, two plain black leather socks, and a white mule called al-Duldul. Because Mābūr’s condition as a eunuch was not known at first, he would freely enter upon Māriyah, as was customary in Egypt. Some people therefore began to gossip about the two of them, unaware of the true situation—that he was in fact a eunuch—until certain individuals even claimed that he was the man whom the Messenger of God ﷺ ordered ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib to kill, but when ʿAlī discovered that he was a eunuch he spared him. The report is found in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.⁴

Ibn Isḥāq⁵ also states that the Messenger of God ﷺ dispatched Salīṭ ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Wudd, of Banū ʿĀmir ibn Luʿayy, to Hawdhah ibn ʿAlī, the ruler of al-Yamāmah; al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Ḥaḍramī to al-Mundhir ibn Sāwā of Banū ʿAbd al-Qays, the ruler of Bahrain; and ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ to Jayfar ibn al-Julandā and his brother ʿAmmār ibn al-Julandā al-Azdi, the two rulers of ʿUmān.

Expedition of Dhāt al-Salāsil⁷

Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī⁸ records this expedition here, prior to the Expedition of the Conquest. Citing the chains of Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah and ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, he writes: The Messenger of God ﷺ sent ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ to Dhāt al-Salāsil on the Syrian frontier against the clans of Balī, ʿAbd Allāh, and their Quḍāʿah allies. ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr adds: “The Banū Balī are the maternal uncles of al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil.” When ʿAmr arrived there, he became apprehensive at their large numbers