Al-Bayhaqī(1) relates that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to this poet, “May Allah never cause your mouth to lose a tooth.” Ninety years passed thereafter, yet neither a molar nor a single tooth of his ever loosened.

Ibn Lahīʿah transmitted—through Abū al-Aswad from ʿUrwah—that, on his return from Tabūk, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent Khālid with four hundred and twenty horsemen against Ukaydir of Dūmah. The account is much the same as what has already been given, except that Khālid employed stratagem until he lured Ukaydir down from the fortress. It also states that Ukaydir came before the Prophet ﷺ with eight hundred captives, one thousand camels, four hundred coats of mail, and four hundred spears. When the ruler of Aylah, Yūḥannah ibn Ruʾbah, heard of Ukaydir’s affair, he, too, hurried to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to sue for peace, and they met the Prophet at Tabūk. Allah knows best.

Yūnus ibn Bukayr(2) narrated—on the authority of Saʿd ibn Aws from Bilāl ibn Yaḥyā—that during the expedition of Dūmat al-Jandal Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq was placed over the Emigrants, while Khālid ibn al-Walīd was put in charge of the Bedouins. Allah knows best.

Section

Ibn Isḥāq(3) said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stayed at Tabūk for a little over ten nights and no more, after which he set out for Madinah.

He continued: On the route there was a thin trickle of water—barely enough for one or two, perhaps three riders—in a valley called Wādī al-Mushaffaq. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Whoever reaches that spring ahead of us must not draw from it until we arrive.”

Some hypocrites got there first and drained it. When the Prophet ﷺ arrived, he halted by the spot and found no water. He asked, “Who reached this spring ahead of us?” He was told, “Messenger of Allah, so-and-so and so-and-so.” He replied, “Did I not forbid them to draw from it until I came?” He then cursed them and invoked against them.

After that he descended, placed his hand beneath the trickle, and kept scooping up what Allah willed. He sprinkled the area, wiped it with his hand, and made supplication; whereupon the water burst forth—with a sound, those present said, like thunderclaps—and the people drank and filled whatever they had.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then said, “If you live on—or if anyone among you lives on—he will surely hear of this valley as the most fertile land before it and behind it.”

Ibn Isḥāq(4) also told me that Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taymī related that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd used to say: “I rose in the middle of the night while I was with the Messenger of Allah on the Tabūk campaign and saw a flame of fire in one direction …”