They were from the Azd, and the poll-tax was taken from the Zoroastrians of their district and the surrounding Bedouin.

He said: In the same year, during Dhū al-Qaʿdah, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ married Fāṭimah bint al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Sufyān al-Kilābī. She sought Allah’s protection from him, so he separated from her. It is also said that he offered her the choice, and when she chose the life of this world he parted from her.

He added: In Dhū al-Ḥijjah of that year Ibrāhīm, the son of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, was born to Māriyah the Copt. The Mothers of the Believers became intensely jealous of her because she had been granted a male child. His midwife was Salmā, the bond-woman of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. She went out to Abū Rāfiʿ, informed him, and he hastened to bring the glad tidings to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who rewarded him with a slave. The Prophet ﷺ then entrusted the infant to Umm Burdah bint al-Mundhir ibn Zayd ibn Khudāsh ibn ʿĀmir ibn Ghanm ibn ʿAdī ibn al-Najjār, the wife of al-Barāʾ ibn Aws ibn Khālid ibn al-Jaʿd ibn ʿAwf ibn Mabdhūl.

In that year also occurred the deaths of the martyrs we have already named in connection with these campaigns. We noted earlier that, with five nights remaining of Ramadan that year, Khālid ibn al-Walīd demolished the shrine at Nakhlah between Mecca and al-Ṭāʾif in which al-ʿUzzā had been worshipped.

Al-Wāqidī said: In that year Suwāʿ, the idol that the tribe of Hudhayl worshipped at Ruhāṭ, was destroyed by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (may Allah be pleased with him); he found nothing in its treasury. That same year Manāt was demolished at al-Mushallal—an idol greatly revered by the Aws and Khazraj of the Anṣār—by Saʿd ibn Zayd al-Ashhalī (may Allah be pleased with him).

We have discussed this matter at length in our commentary on Sūrat al-Najm (1) at His words: “Have you then considered al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā (19) and Manāt, the third, the other?” (53:19–20).

I remark: Al-Bukhārī, after the section on the Conquest of Mecca, relates the story of the tribe of Khathʿam demolishing the shrine they worshipped. They called it the Yemeni Kaʿbah in imitation of the Kaʿbah in Mecca, which they in turn called the Syrian Kaʿbah, reserving the name “Yemeni Kaʿbah” for their own.

Al-Bukhārī (2) narrated: “Yūsuf ibn Mūsā told us, Abū Usāmah told us, from Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, from Qays, from Jarīr who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to me, ‘Will you not relieve me of Dhū al-Khalasah?’ I replied, ‘Indeed I will.’ So I set out with one hundred and fifty horsemen from Ahmas, all of them expert riders. I myself was unsteady on horseback, so I mentioned that to the Prophet ﷺ. He struck his hand upon my chest—I could see the mark of his hand—and said, ‘O Allah, make him firm and make him a guide, rightly guided.’ After that I never fell from a horse.

“Dhū al-Khalasah was a shrine in Yemen belonging to Khathʿam and Bajīlah in which an idol was worshipped; it was called the Yemeni Kaʿbah. I reached it, set it on fire, and smashed it.

“When I arrived in Yemen, there was a man there casting lots with divining arrows. People told him, ‘The emissary of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is here; if he can seize you he will strike your neck.’ While he was still casting the lots I came upon him and said, ‘Break them and testify that there is no god but Allah, or I will strike your neck.’ He broke them and made the testimony of faith.

“Jarīr then sent a man of Ahmas, known as Abū Arṭāh, to the Prophet ﷺ with the good news, and he said: ‘When …’”