Sa'd’s coat of mail had been more complete than it was.” She said, “I feared for him because of where the arrow might strike him.” She said: “That day Sa'd was struck by an arrow that severed the medial vein in his arm. Khabbab ibn Qays ibn al-Ariqah, a man of Banu Amir ibn Lu'ayy, shot him. When he struck him, he said, ‘Take that! I am the son of al-Ariqah!’ Sa'd said, ‘May Allah make your face perspire in the Fire!’ Then Sa'd said: ‘O Allah, if You have left any warfare against Quraysh, then preserve me for it, for there is no people against whom I would more dearly love to strive than a people who harmed Your Messenger, denied him, and expelled him. But if You have ended the war between us and them, then make this wound a means of martyrdom for me, and do not cause me to die until You grant me satisfaction concerning Banu Qurayzah.’ They had been his allies and clients in the pre-Islamic period. (1)

Muhammad ibn Ishaq related from Yahya ibn Abbad ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, from his father Abbad, who said: Safiyyah bint Abd al-Muttalib was in Fari', the fortress of Hassan ibn Thabit. She said: “Hassan was there with us in the fortress, together with the women and children. A Jewish man passed by us and began circling the fortress. Banu Qurayzah had gone to war, cutting off the route between us and the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. There was no one between us and them to defend us, while the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the Muslims were confronting their enemy and could not turn away from them to come to us if anyone attacked us.”

Safiyyah said: “I said, ‘O Hassan, as you can see, this Jewish man is circling the fortress. By Allah, I do not feel safe from his revealing our vulnerability to the Jews behind us, while the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions are occupied with their enemy. Go down to him and kill him.’ He replied, ‘May Allah forgive you, daughter of Abd al-Muttalib. By Allah, you know that I am not the man for this.’”

She said: “When he said this to me, and I saw that he would do nothing, I wrapped myself tightly, took up a staff, and went down from the fortress to him. I struck him with the staff until I killed him. When I had finished with him, I returned to the fortress and said, ‘O Hassan, go down to him and strip him of his belongings, for nothing prevented me from doing so except that he was a man.’ He said, ‘I have no need of his belongings, daughter of Abd al-Muttalib.’” (2) (3) (4)

They said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions remained in the state of fear and hardship that Allah Most High had described, because their enemy had joined forces against them and had come upon them from above and from below.

Then Nu'aym ibn Mas'ud ibn Amir of Ghatafan came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and said, “O Messenger of Allah, I have embraced Islam, but my people do not know of my Islam. Command me as you wish.” The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to him, “You are only one man among us, so undermine them on our behalf if you can, for war is deception.”

Nu'aym ibn Mas'ud then went out until he came to Banu Qurayzah. He had been their intimate companion in the pre-Islamic period. He said to them, “O Banu Qurayzah, you know of my affection for you and of the special relationship between me and you.” They said, “You have spoken the truth. We do not regard you with suspicion.”

He said to them, “Quraysh and Ghatafan have come to fight Muhammad, and you have supported them against him. But Quraysh and Ghatafan are not in the same situation as you: this town is your town, and here are your wealth, your children, and your women.”