Thumāmah ibn Uthāl

And then there is the incident of Thumāmah. Now this is mentioned among the delegations even though it does not belong here: because, first of all, Thumāmah did not come to Madīnah willingly — he was arrested and captured; and second of all, this incident happened earlier, because Thumāmah speaks of Makkah as being kuffār at the time, and now this is a time when Makkah was already Muslim. But this is where Ibn Kathīr puts it in the sequence, and one would find it in the books of sīrah too within ʿĀm al-Wufūd, the Year of Delegations. Apparently they gathered all of the delegations that came into one section, even though the timing may not have been the same. For example, they speak of al-Ṭufayl ibn ʿAmr al-Dawsī, even though he came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in Makkah, not in Madīnah.

Anyway, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) sent an army to Najd, and they captured a man from Banū Ḥanīfah named Thumāmah ibn Uthāl (al-Bukhārī 4372). They tied him to a pillar in the masjid. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) went to him and said: what do you have to say? He said: I have good to say. If you kill me, you will kill a man who is very worthy among his people — that is, if you do kill me, you will have killed somebody important; that is one interpretation. The other interpretation is that it means: you will have killed someone who has blood on his hands, and therefore there is no blame on you if you do so. But if you release me, you will release a man who is grateful; and if you want money, ask me what you want. The Messenger of Allah left him. And then he came to him the next day and said: what do you have to say? He said the same thing: I have what I already told you; if you release me, you will be releasing a man who is grateful. And then he came to him the next day and said to him: what do you have to say, Thumāmah? He said: I have to say what you have already heard. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: release him.

He left, and as soon as he got out of the masjid he took a ghusl — he bathed — and then he came into the masjid and said: I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and that Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah. He did not want to do it while he was tied up; but now he was grateful, and he was free, and he could leave if he wanted; but he became Muslim. And he said: O Muḥammad, there was no face on the face of the earth more hateful to me than your face, and now your face is the most beloved to me. There was no religion more hateful to me than your religion, and now your religion has become the most beloved to me. There was no land more hateful to me than your land, and now your land is the most beloved to me. And your horsemen captured me when I wanted to go for ʿUmrah; what do you think I should do? The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told him to go and make ʿUmrah.

So when he arrived in Makkah, they said to him: have you become an apostate? He said: no, but I have become Muslim with Muḥammad. And then he said: and by Allah, not a single grain of wheat will reach you from al-Yamāmah until the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) permits it. And this is evidence used by those who accept boycotting as a valid weapon of war, because what Thumāmah did was actually an economic boycott of Makkah: he prevented the caravans from carrying wheat to Makkah. So they say that this is evidence that boycotting the enemy is a valid way of fighting them.