The expedition of ʿAlqamah ibn Mujazziz al-Mudlaji was dispatched so that he might avenge his brother Waqqāṣ ibn Mujazziz, who had been killed at Dhū Qarad. ʿAlqamah asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ for leave to pursue the enemy’s tracks, and he granted it, appointing him over a detachment of men. While they were on their way back, the Prophet allowed part of the force to march ahead under the command of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥudhāfah, a man known for his light-heartedness. Ibn Ḥudhāfah kindled a fire and ordered them to leap into it; when some of them were about to comply he said, “I was only joking.” When the matter reached the Prophet ﷺ he said, “If anyone commands you to disobey Allah, do not obey him.” This report is related by Ibn Hishām from al-Darāwardī, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAlqamah, from ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Thawbān, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī.

Another expedition sent Kurz ibn Jābir after the band who had come to Madinah. They were from Qays Kubbah, a clan of Bajīlah. Finding the climate of Madinah unhealthy, they complained of illness, so the Messenger of Allah ﷺ told them to go out to his camels and drink their milk and urine. Once recovered, they murdered the herdsman—Yasār, the Messenger’s freedman—slit his throat, gouged his eyes with thorns, and drove off the milking camels. The Prophet then dispatched Kurz ibn Jābir with a group of Companions in pursuit. Kurz overtook the men of Bajīlah as the Prophet ﷺ was returning from the expedition of Dhū Qarad and brought them back. The Prophet ordered that their hands and feet be cut off and that their eyes be put out. If these were the very men mentioned in the agreed-upon ḥadīth of Anas—eight men from ʿUkl or ʿUraynah who came to Madinah—and that seems likely, their story has already been given in detail. If they were others, what we have cited here represents the essence of Ibn Hishām’s account; Allah knows best.

Ibn Hishām says: “There was also the expedition of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, which he undertook twice.” Abū ʿAmr al-Madani relates: “The Messenger of Allah sent ʿAlī to Yemen and Khālid with another force, saying, ‘If you meet, the commander is ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.’” He adds: “Ibn Isḥāq mentions Khālid’s dispatch but does not include it in his tally of expeditions and detachments; accordingly, the total he gives should be thirty-nine.”

Ibn Isḥāq also reports that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent Usāmah ibn Zayd ibn Ḥārithah to Syria, instructing him to let the cavalry range along the borders of al-Balqāʾ and al-Dārūm in the land of Palestine. The troops prepared, and the earliest Emigrants—all of them—joined Usāmah. Ibn Hishām remarks: “This was the last expedition the Messenger of Allah ﷺ ever dispatched.”