Hadith One

Anas ibn Mālik (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated:

Some people from the tribes of ʿUkl—or ʿUraynah—came to Medina and found its climate disagreeable. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, supplied them with some milch she-camels and instructed them to drink the camels’ milk and urine, whereupon they set out.

Once they had recovered, they killed the Prophet’s herdsman and drove off the animals.

Word of this reached the Prophet early in the morning. He sent a detachment after them, and when the sun had risen high they were brought back. He ordered that their right hands and left feet be cut off, that their eyes be branded, and that they be left on the lava-strewn plain of al-Ḥarrah asking for water, yet none was given to them.

Abū Qilābah remarked, “These men stole, murdered after embracing Islam, and waged war against Allah and His Messenger.” The report is recorded by all six of the major hadith compilers.

Explanatory expressions

• “Ijtawaytu al-bilād”: to dislike a land, even though it may suit others.
• “Istawbaʾtuhā”: when a place does not agree with you.

Unfamiliar terms

• ʿUkl: an ʿAdnānite Arab tribe.
• ʿUraynah: a Qaḥṭānite Arab tribe.
• “Ijtawaw al-Madīnah”: the verb (root j-t-w) means they found Medina unpleasant because of an internal illness called al-jawā, from which the term is derived.
• “Bilaqāḥ”: plural of laqḥah, a lactating she-camel.
• “Naʿam”: collective term for livestock; here it refers to camels.
• “Āthāruhum”: plural of athar, their tracks.
• “From opposite sides”: the right hand and the left foot are severed.
• “Their eyes were branded”: their eyes were cauterized with red-hot iron nails.
• “Al-Ḥarrah”: a basalt plain covered with black volcanic stones situated outside Medina.
• Qilābah: Abū Qilābah ʿAbd Allāh al-Jarmī.

Overall meaning

A number of desert Arabs arrived in Medina and embraced Islam. Unaccustomed to the city’s climate, they fell ill and became discontented with staying there. The Prophet, concerned for both their faith and their health, diagnosed their condition and prescribed a remedy: he sent them to the open air outside the city and told them to drink camel milk and urine.

After regaining their strength, they rebelled. They gouged out the shepherd’s eye, murdered him, apostatized from Islam, and escaped with the camels whose milk had been given to them.

News of their crime reached the Prophet, so he dispatched