075 - Recap & Battle of Dhat Al Salasil

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We are now in the 8th year of the Hijrah and the Prophet PBUH is 61 years old. Masha'Allah, we've covered the entire seerah up until this stage. And the Prophet PBUH is nearing the pinnacle of his career, and that is the Conquest of Makkah.

We discussed the Battle of Mu'tah. It was not a victory in the military sense, however, it was a victory in another sense — in the sense of morale boost to the Muslims that they took on the mightiest superpower in the world at the time, the Romans. This was the only time the Muslims fought the Romans in the life of the Prophet PBUH. They didn't win, but they definitely did not lose. Over 95% of the army came back intact and untouched. Yes there were some major losses, but 99% of the army came back alive. And there is a message being sent that, "We will even take the Romans on." This is why the Prophet PBUH said the Battle of Mu'tah was a fath (victory) — it was a morale and PR victory. Subhan'Allah, think about it — the Romans had the better everything: better weapons, better horses, more generals, etc., and the Arabs could never think of taking them on, but the Muslims did, and they came back unscathed. So what do you think the morale would have been amongst the Quraysh now? They see even the Romans cannot finish the Muslims off. All of this is a PR victory that Allah SWT is blessing the Muslims with. Indeed, more than half the battle is perception — it is the morale on your side and the demoralization on the other side. And this is why when the people criticized the returners from the Battle of Mu'tah and said, "You are deserters," our Prophet PBUH said, "[They are not furrar (فرار - deserters/runners away),] rather, they are kurrar (كرار - the ones who will come back and fight again)," and of the first fights they did after Mu'tah was the Conquest of Makkah.

In addition to all of this, the Muslims have won on the moral front and quantity front during the last two years. As we said, more people embraced Islam in these 2 years than in the first 18 years of the dawah. Subhan'Allah. This shows us how effective the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was. And this clearly shows us the spreading of Islam was NOT done through the sword. Rather, it is done through peace and interacting with the people.

Every single episode of the seerah is leading up to the climax, and there's no doubt the Conquest of Makkah is *the* climax of the seerah. Everything after is just footnotes. Yes, we have the Battle of Hunayn and Tabuk, but that is just finishing off. The ultimate climax is the return of the Prophet PBUH to Makkah, coming back to the very city that expelled him. And indeed, once Makkah is in the hands of the Muslims and they already have central and northern Arabia, then the rest must fall. What is left? The small principalities — they aren't centers or leaders, they are rather following the center which is Makkah. So the Conquest of Makkah truly is the climax of the seerah of the Prophet PBUH, and the rest of the incidents that occurred after are just small footnotes.

Before we begin the Conquest of Makkah which occurred in Ramadan in 8 AH, we will discuss a few incidents that took place between Mu'tah and the Conquest. And note when we mention the smaller battles, what is really beneficial for us is not the politics of which tribe was conquered, rather, the incidents that occurred in these battles and the benefits that we can derive from them, to gain small but important moral benefits, theological benefits, and fiqh benefits. So we begin with the most significant of these minor battles, the Sariyya of Dhat al-Salasil (not to be confused with the Battle of Dhat al-Salasil which refers to the downfall of the Persian Empire during the reign of Umar RA; which had Khalid ibn al-Walid on one side and Rustum & Yazdegerd on the other side. And that was the end of the Sassanid Empire — so it's very important, but it's beyond the scope of the seerah. What we will discuss is the Dhat al-Salasil during the Prophet's PBUH time.)

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The Sariyya of Dhat al-Salasil

This sariyya is called Sariyya Dhat al-Salasil (سرية ذات السلاسل) because the incident took place near a pond that was called Dhat al-Salasil. (The other battle during Umar's RA reign is called Dhat al-Salasil because the prisoners were all tied up in chains [and salasil means chains], and the Muslims had so many prisoners the whole battle was called the Battle of Dhat al-Salasil.) If we hear Dhat al-Salasil, usually it's about the famous battle during Umar's RA reign led by Khalid ibn al-Walid; but right now we are discussing the small incident that occurred during the time of the Prophet PBUH.

The sariyya we are interested in took place a few weeks after the Incident of Mu'tah, so around Jumada al-Ula (جمادى الأولى) or Jumada al-Thani (جمادى الثاني) of the 8th year of the Hijrah. It was against one of the relatively large tribes up north, and that was the tribe of Quda'a (قضاعة). Now this tribe was not as north as the tribe of Ghassan (the Christian Arabs up north whom the Muslims fought during Mu'tah). Quda'a was not that north; it was between Madinah and Ghassan, and also it wasn't full north, it was north-east in direction.

It turns out the tribe of Quda'a had aided the Ghassanids during Mu'tah, and therefore, this was a response.

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Appointing Amr ibn al-As as Leader

The Prophet PBUH called Amr ibn al-As to him.

And Amr narrates this story in the first person: "The Prophet PBUH called for me and commanded me to wear my garments and armor and come to him. So I did that, and when I came to him, he was doing wudu. He looked at me up and down and said, 'I wish to appoint you as a leader of an army, and Allah will protect you and give you much ghanima. And I am optimistic for you that you will get much wealth.'" Amr said, "Ya Rasulullah, I did not accept Islam in order to become wealthy, rather, I accepted Islam to be a Muslim and to be with you." It is as if Amr feels a little bit hurt that the Prophet PBUH is offering him money, that, "You think I embraced Islam for money?"—and this shows us his sincerity to Allah and his love for the Prophet PBUH. He's a genuine Muslim.

(Tangent 1: Amr ibn al-As is also the one who at some point in the seerah said, "The way the Prophet PBUH used to treat me, I thought I was the most beloved to him. So [one day] I asked him, 'Who is the most beloved to you?' He PBUH said, 'Aisha.'" Amr said, "No, I meant amongst men." The Prophet PBUH said, "Her father [i.e., Abu Bakr]." Amr said, "I kept on asking, but my name didn't come, so I stopped asking fearing my name might never come." Subhan'Allah, the point here is that Amr is one of the last converts, yet because of the nature of the Prophet PBUH, he felt he was the most beloved to him PBUH.) (Tangent 2: Note Amr ibn al-As later on got involved in the political turmoil after the death of the Prophet PBUH, and because of this, other sects give him a bad image. But wallahi, it is a point of theology to respect the sahaba, especially someone like Amr who clearly loves Allah and His Messenger. Whatever Amr did later on, we believe he was sincere in his ijtihad. And Amr is among those who accepted Islam before the Conquest of Makkah and fought before it, so the verse in the Quran pertains exactly to him:

وَمَا لَكُمْ أَلَّا تُنفِقُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَلِلَّهِ مِيرَاثُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ لَا يَسْتَوِي مِنكُم مَّنْ أَنفَقَ مِن قَبْلِ الْفَتْحِ وَقَاتَلَ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ أَعْظَمُ دَرَجَةً مِّنَ الَّذِينَ أَنفَقُوا مِن بَعْدُ وَقَاتَلُوا ۚ وَكُلًّا وَعَدَ اللَّهُ الْحُسْنَىٰ ۚ وَاللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ

"And why should you not spend in the cause of Allah, while Allah is the [sole] inheritor of the heavens and the earth? Those of you who donated and fought before the Conquest [of Makkah] are unparalleled. They are far greater in rank than those who donated and fought afterward. Yet Allah has promised each a fine reward. And Allah is All-Aware of what you do" [57:10].

So by the testimony of the Quran, people like Amr ibn al-As are at a higher level than those who became Muslim after the Conquest.)

So here we have this sincerity coming from him, "Ya Rasulullah, I didn't accept Islam in order to become wealthy." Then the Prophet PBUH said to him a phrase that should give all of us comfort when we go about earning our sustenance from Allah SWT, "O Amr, how beautiful is pure money for the righteous man?" When Amr felt insulted, the Prophet PBUH corrected his misunderstanding and said there is nothing wrong with having money and wanting money as long as (i) the man is righteous (الرجل الصالح), and (ii) the money is pure (المال الصالح) — these are the two conditions. The man earning must be pious, and you cannot get haram money. Thus, from this hadith we derive having and earning money is not wrong as long as the money is pure and you use it to please Allah.

So Amr ibn al-As was given 300 men and was told to surprise attack the tribe of Quda'a. And it's very interesting he was given this leadership role despite being only 3 months old as a Muslim. Perhaps the Prophet PBUH is wanting to test him. This is kind of demonstrated by the fact that when Amr came to the Prophet PBUH, the Prophet PBUH gazed at him "up and down" as the hadith says — this is a sign of assessing someone. And this is in fact the role of a true leader. Even us with our children, we should test them with something small, see if they pass, and if they do, we give them something bigger and so on. Here the Prophet PBUH is testing Amr with not a major battle, but something relatively small (300 people). Note even if Amr was a new Muslim, he was NOT a new military general. He had the upbringing of his father who was a chieftain, so he had been trained like Khalid ibn al-Walid and others. He had experience. So Amr was given this leadership and he was told to go to Quda'a. And it was in the winter when this occurred, so Amr traveled only at night, not during the day. Why? To ensure the enemy did not hear of his coming. And at night, even though it was freezing cold, he refused to allow the army to light a fire throughout the entire trip, so much so they all complained and Amr said to them, "If you light a fire, I will push you into it!" (And when they returned back to Madinah, they complained to the Prophet PBUH that Amr refused them to light a fire, so Amr explained, "O Rasulullah, our quantity was limited and I didn't want the tribe to see how small we were.") So he took harsh precautions and eventually got to the outskirts of the tribe of Quda'a, and he realized 300 was not enough for an attack, so he sent a message to the Prophet PBUH that he needs more men.

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Reinforcement Led By Abu Ubaydah Amir ibn al-Jarrah RA

So the Prophet PBUH sent reinforcements of 200 to make it 500. And in this 200 reinforcement were Abu Bakr, Umar, and other major companions, and in charge of this 200 was the famous companion Abu Ubaydah Amir ibn al-Jarrah, one of the elites of the sahaba. And the Prophet PBUH told Abu Ubaydah, "When you get to your companion (Amr), make sure the two of you agree and do not disagree." When the reinforcements arrived, it was time for the salah, and when the iqama was called, Abu Ubaydah goes forward to lead. Now in those times, the leader of the salah was the leader of the army, and the leader of the army was the leader of the salah. This was known. (Tangent: In early Islam as well it was the khalifa who always led the salah and who gave the khutbahs. There was the symbolism that the imam is the leader of the Muslims in every possible sense. The Umayyad khalifas gave their own khutbahs. It was only later on this stopped.) So when Abu Ubaydah went forward, Amr said, "No, you are reinforcements, and I am the leader." Abu Ubaydah is senior to him in every sense —in terms of Islam, Quran, everything— and Amr is just 3 months old, yet Amr is showing disapproval at Abu Ubaydah coming forward to lead the salah. Some of the sahaba on the side of Abu Ubaydah said, "Abu Ubaydah is our amir. You might be the amir of those 300, but ours is him." So some tensions broke out, but Abu Ubaydah just agreed to step down and said, "Ya Amr, the Prophet PBUH said to me, 'Make sure the two of you agree and do not disagree.' So even if you will disobey me, I will not disobey you." And therefore, he let Amr lead the salah, and Amr therefore became the leader of the army.

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Lessons From the Back-and-Forth Between Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah and Amr ibn al-As

Note expeditions such as Dhat al-Salasil as we're discussing now, we commoners don't know the tribe of Quda'a (even though advanced seerah scholars do), so it is hardly beneficial for us to discuss the historical details. Thus what we do is try to derive benefits and lessons from them. And from this incident of Amr and Abu Ubaydah, we learn two things:

1. No doubt the sahaba are the best generation of humans, but they are humans. We need to break this image of the sahaba being superhumans. They are humans, and as humans, they battle the same emotions as us. There are tensions, and the role model we gain is to see how they resolve the conflict: Abu Ubaydah feels he is more qualified, and Amr says the Prophet PBUH put him in charge (and in a sense, both of them are correct) — and how did Abu Ubaydah resolve the conflict? He just agreed to step down — he stepped on his own ego, swallowed his pride, and let Amr lead. He sacrificed his own ego for the sake of unity. And wallahi, what a lesson for us. This is true leadership. To step down for the sake of unity. And he said, "Okay, even if you won't follow me, in order to not disobey Rasulullah, I will follow you." Subhan'Allah. This shows us true leadership is not necessarily about actually being in charge, rather, it is sacrificing for the community.

2. To be in charge, you don't have to be the single best muttaqi. Where do we learn this from? Who were in the 200 who came as reinforcements? Abu Bakr and Umar RA! And by unanimous consensus, Abu Bakr and Umar are better than Abu Ubaydah in terms of taqwa, status, and right to leadership. Yet the Prophet PBUH put Abu Ubaydah in charge. Thus this shows us, to be in charge, you don't have to be the single best person of taqwa. The technical term is "imamat al-mafduli ala al-fadil (إمامة المفضول على الفاضل - the leadership of the one who is not as good over the one who is better than him)." And this is one of the differences between us and some of the Shia groups. Some of them say, "The leader has to be the best person in the world," but we say this is incorrect and historically not the case, as we saw in this incident, Abu Ubaydah was not the best compared to Abu Bakr, yet he was in charge. One could also say perhaps he was put in charge due to military reasons, and this shows us to have the most Iman is not always the best criterion to be the leader. Being the best muttaqi doesn't mean you are the best tactician.

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The Outcome of the Sariyya

In any case, Abu Ubaydah steps down, Amr takes charge, and he coordinates an attack. When the tribe of Quda'a saw 500 armed men attack them in complete surprise, they basically dropped everything and fled. The Muslims did not conquer the entire tribe since it was far too large to do this, but the message was clearly sent that, "Don't mess with us," fear was instilled in the hearts of the Quda'a, and much ghanima was conquered in fulfillment with what the Prophet PBUH said. So there were no major casualties, it was a major financial victory for the Muslims.

And with this battle, the Muslims have effectively conquered northern Arabia, at least from a PR perspective. Northern Arabia was never a threat after this. By and large it has become safe, and in fact, a number of tribes accepted Islam and there is an alliance formed.

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Tayammum in Place of Ghusl

In the books of hadith, we find an incident Amr narrates — it's an embarrassing incident, but he is not embarrassed to mention it because there is much fiqh in it. He says on one of the nights of Dhat al-Salasil, he had a wet dream —and they were in the middle of the desert, thus it was freezing cold— so he said, "I was worried if I take a ghusl, I would kill myself"—and wallahi, the desert cold is so harsh it hits the bone—so he said, "So I did tayammum [instead] and led Fajr with my companions." And when they returned to Madinah, the sahaba complained to the Prophet PBUH, and one of the things they said was, "Amr led us in the state of janaba!" So the Prophet PBUH called Amr and asked, "Did you lead them in the state of janaba?" (Side note: This shows us whenever you hear information, you must verify. There are always two sides to the story. From their perspective, they had water to do ghusl but Amr refused to do it and still led them in Fajr. But from Amr's perspective, he has his side of the story.) Amr said, "Ya Rasulullah, I heard Allah say, 'Do not kill yourselves. Surely Allah is ever Merciful to you' [Quran, 4:29], and I was worried that if I took a bath, I would kill myself. Therefore, I did tayammum and did not take a bath."

And Amr narrates the Prophet PBUH laughed at his explanation and did not say anything to rebuke him.

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Fiqh Benefits From the Incident of Tayammum

This incident of tayammum shows us many things:

1. Tayammum takes the place of ghusl by unanimous consensus — not just wudu.

2. It is allowed to perform tayammum even while water is present if there is a legitimate reason. Before this point in time, the only time the sahaba did tayammum was when they didn't have water. And this is the first time a sahabi does tayammum intentionally leaving the water. This therefore shows us tayammum can be performed in the presence of water if there is a legitimate reason. What are these legitimate reasons?

i) It is freezing cold as in Amr's case.

ii) If you have a skin ailment that the water cannot touch it.

3. It also demonstrates that the sahaba derived Islamic laws through their own reasoning (based on Quranic verses) even when the Prophet PBUH was alive. In other words, they did ijtihad even when the Prophet PBUH was alive. (Side note: And ijtihad has always been how you derive Islamic laws that are not explicit.)

4. The one who does tayammum is not in any way diminished in his capability of leading salah.

5. Ijtihad (deriving laws) takes into account real-life situations. That is, here we have Amr faced with a verse from the Quran, "If you are in a state of janaba, then take a full bath"[Quran, 5:6]—this is an explicit command, yet he understands, "This command has leeway depending on circumstances." He is not a die-hard literalist. He understands, "This verse cannot be applicable to me right now because it will lead to my death; and there is another verse which allows me to reinterpret this verse according to my situation." (Side note: Indeed, as we have seen in episode 61, there has always been a tension between those who are ultra-literalists and those who use a little bit of rationality to understand religious texts  And of course, in our times, this tension exists at a much more extreme level, and there is no easy solution in this regard — no doubt, our religion takes into account our situation and scenario, but we are required to be faithful to the text. And balancing the two is always a delicate act, there is no easy solution.)

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The Sanctity of Human Life

One final incident occurred in one of the smaller battles before the Conquest of Makkah, in which Allah revealed a verse in the Quran regarding it. And that is, in a small expedition, the Prophet PBUH sent a small group of sahaba to attack one of the tribes that was threatening the Muslims, and the sahaba passed by a person by the name of Amir ibn al-Adbat al-Ashja'i (عامر بن الأضبط الأشجعي). He was a secret Muslim, but his tribe was not; and when he saw the Muslims, he became happy and said, "Assalamu'alaykum!"—and giving salam is the sign of being a Muslim. In the contingent of the Prophet PBUH, there was a man who had a personal vendetta with this Amir from the days of Jahiliyyah, and his name was Muhallim ibn Juthama (محلم بن جثامة). The rest of the sahaba accepted Amir's salam and welcomed him, but Muhallim refused to accept it and said, "You are not a Muslim," and he single-handedly attacked him and killed him, and took his belongings as war booty. He said, "He's just pretending to be a Muslim." When the news reached the Prophet PBUH, Allah revealed Surah al-Nisa verse 94:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا ضَرَبْتُمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ فَتَبَيَّنُوا وَلَا تَقُولُوا لِمَنْ أَلْقَىٰ إِلَيْكُمُ السَّلَامَ لَسْتَ مُؤْمِنًا تَبْتَغُونَ عَرَضَ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا فَعِندَ اللَّهِ مَغَانِمُ كَثِيرَةٌ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ كُنتُم مِّن قَبْلُ فَمَنَّ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكُمْ فَتَبَيَّنُوا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرًا

"O believers! When you struggle in the cause of Allah, be sure of who you fight. And do not say to those who offer you [greetings of] peace, 'You are no believer!'—seeking a fleeting worldly gain. Instead, Allah has infinite bounties [in store]. You were initially like them, then Allah blessed you [with Islam]. So be sure! Indeed, Allah is All-Aware of what you do" [4:94].

Subhan'Allah. So Allah exposed the intention of Muhallim. He did it because he had a vendetta and he wanted his belongings. And after this murder, there was a huge dispute between the tribe of Muhallim and the tribe of Amir ibn al-Adbat. Eventually, both accepted Islam, and after the Battle of Hunayn [i.e., after a few months, in 8 AH], the chieftains of both came to the Prophet PBUH and demanded this murder be resolved. The both of them were angry and the Prophet PBUH had to calm them down. He PBUH then agreed to pay 100 camels on his own behalf because at the end of the day, he is the leader, he sent Muhallim, so he takes responsibility. So he gave 100 camels. And the tribe of Muhallim said to the Prophet PBUH, "Why don't you ask Allah to forgive Muhallim?" But the Prophet PBUH, of the very few times in his life, refused because of Muhallim's character, because of what was in his heart.

Ibn Ishaq mentions after a few days, Muhallim died and his tribe buried him, but the next morning, they found him on top of the ground with his face down. So they dug another hole and buried him again. But the next morning, the same thing happened. They did it again, but the same thing again. Then the tribe basically put him between a valley, left his body there and threw stones on his body to cover it up. So he's not actually buried.

Then the Prophet PBUH said something very profound, "Verily, the earth covers up people worse than him (his crime wasn't the worst), but Allah wanted to warn you through him by showing you the sanctity of life between you." This is a beautiful point. Subhan'Allah. The sanctity of human life is so strong that you cannot just go around taking people's lives for personal vendetta accusing them of not being real Muslims.

And this is one of the few times the Prophet PBUH did not ask Allah to forgive someone.

[Transcribed by Br. Safwan Khan & Faizan]
safwan-khan@hotmail.com
[Revised by Br. Syed Haq & MAR, November 2021]