‘Would you perhaps refuse to fight if fighting were prescribed for you?’ They said, ‘Why should we not fight in Allah’s cause when we have been driven from our homes and separated from our children?’”

Thus they gave their expulsion from their homes and separation from their children as their reason for fighting. Yet even so, they shrank from the fighting they had been commanded to undertake. For this reason, spoils of war were not lawful for them, nor did they have sexual relations with slave women by right of ownership.

It is well known that the greatest believing nation before us was the Children of Israel, as related in the hadith agreed to be authentic and recorded in the two Sahīhs, from Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both), who said:

“One day the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) came out to us and said, ‘The nations were shown to me. One prophet would pass by accompanied by one man, another by two men, another by a small group, and another with no one accompanying him. I saw a vast multitude filling the horizon and hoped that it was my nation. But I was told, “This is Moses and his people.”

‘Then I was told, “Look!” I saw a vast multitude filling the horizon. Then I was told, “Look this way and that!” I saw a vast multitude filling the horizon, and I was told, “These are your nation. With them are seventy thousand who will enter Paradise without being called to account.”’

“The people dispersed without his having explained further. The companions of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) discussed the matter among themselves, saying, ‘As for us, we were born amid polytheism and then came to believe in Allah and His Messenger. But these must be our children.’

“Word of this reached the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), and he said, ‘They are those who do not believe in evil omens, do not undergo cauterization, do not seek ruqyah (healing recitations), and put their trust in their Lord.’ Then ʿUkkāsha ibn Mihsan stood up and said: