…when they had apostasised, some of them he burned with fire, others he crushed with stones, and still others he hurled from the tops of mountains—all of this so that any of the Arab apostates who heard their fate might take warning. (may Allah be pleased with him)
Sufyān al-Thawrī related—through Qays ibn Muslim—from Ṭāriq ibn Shihāb who said:
When the delegation of Buzākhah, made up of the tribes of Asad and Ghaṭafān, came to Abu Bakr asking for a truce, Abu Bakr offered them a choice between ḥarb mujalliyah, an all-out war that would drive them away, or khuṭṭah mukhziyah, a degrading settlement.
They said, “O Successor to the Messenger of Allah, we understand what a war of expulsion is, but what is the humiliating settlement?”
He replied, “Your arms and armour (ḥalqah) and your horses (kirāʿ) will be taken from you, while some of your men will be left to trail behind the camels’ tails until Allah shows the Prophet’s successor and the believers something on account of which they may excuse you. You will return whatever spoils you took from us, whereas we will not return what we took from you. You must bear witness that our slain are in Paradise and your slain in the Fire. You will pay blood-money for our dead, and we will pay none for yours.”
ʿUmar said, “As for your stipulation that blood-money be paid for our slain—our slain were killed in the cause of Allah; no blood-money is due for them.” ʿUmar at first objected, but later he said, “What an excellent decision you reached.”
Al-Bukhārī (1) recorded this in summary form through al-Thawrī’s chain.
[Another Engagement]
A large group of the survivors (2) who had fought alongside Ṭulayḥa at Buzākhah—men of Banū Ghaṭafān—gathered around a woman called Umm Zummal, Salma bint Mālik ibn Ḥudhayfah. She was one of the leading women of the Arabs, like her mother Umm Qirfa, who was proverbial for nobility on account of her many children (3) and the prestige of her clan and household. Once they assembled around her, she roused them to fight Khālid; they became inflamed, and others from Banū Sulaym, Ṭayyʾ, Hawāzin and Asad rallied to them, forming a large army. The affair of this woman thus swelled in importance.
When Khālid ibn al-Walīd heard of them he marched against them, and a fierce battle ensued while she was mounted on her mother’s camel, about which people used to say, “Whoever so much as touches her camel shall receive a hundred camels,” such was her standing. Khālid routed them, hamstrung her camel, killed her, and sent news of the victory to al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him).
The Story of al-Fujāʾah (5)
His name was Īyās ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Yā-Layl ibn ʿUmayrah ibn Khafāf of Banū Sulaym, according to Ibn Isḥāq. Al-Ṣiddīq had burned al-Fujāʾah in the Baqīʿ cemetery of Madinah. The reason was that he came to him claiming to have embraced Islam and asked him to equip him with a force…