Like a dark she-wolf lurking in the shade of her lair,
I went out in the month of Rajab to find her food;
She rewarded me with quarrelling and flight,
Broke her promise and turned tail,
Flung me into a tangled, thorn-filled grove—
And they are the worst of conquerors over the one who conquers them.

At that, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ remarked,
“They are indeed the worst of conquerors over whoever conquers them.”

The man then laid before him the story of his wife and what she had done, adding that she was staying with one of their men called Muṭarrif ibn Nahshal. The Prophet ﷺ therefore wrote to Muṭarrif:

“See to this man’s wife, Muʿādhah, and deliver her back to him.”

When the letter of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ reached Muṭarrif and was read to him, he said to her,
“O Muʿādhah, this is the letter of the Messenger of Allah concerning you; I must hand you over to your husband.”

She replied, “Secure for me a covenant, a solemn pledge, and the Prophet’s guarantee that he will not punish me for what I have done.” He obtained that pledge for her and then returned her to her husband. Whereupon the husband composed the following lines:

[Long-meter verse]
By your life, my love for Muʿādhah is not of the sort
That tale-bearers can alter, nor the aging of the pledge;
Nor did any fault of hers diminish it, when mischief-makers
Among the men enticed her once I was gone.

The Arrival of Surad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Azdi with a company of his people, followed by the delegation of Jurash

Ibn Isḥāq relates: Surad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Azdi came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ at the head of a delegation from the Azd. He embraced Islam, and his Islam was sound. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ appointed him over those of his people who had accepted Islam and instructed him to fight, with those Muslims, the nearby idolaters from the tribes of Yemen. He marched forth and laid siege to Jurash, where various Yemeni clans had gathered; the tribe of Khathʿam also joined them when they heard of his advance. He remained before the city for about a month, during which they held out against him. Then he withdrew until he drew near a mountain called Shakar. Thinking he had turned back in defeat, they came out in pursuit of him; he wheeled round and struck them with a severe slaughter.

Now, the people of Jurash had already sent two men to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in Medina, and while the two envoys were still with him