Abū Baṣīr on the Coast

Now to the story of Abū Baṣīr. After the agreement was made, a man called Abū Baṣīr, who belonged to the tribe of Thaqīf — and where are Thaqīf from? Thaqīf are from al-Ṭāʾif — but who was an ally of Banū Zuhrah, and Banū Zuhrah are one of the clans of Quraysh in Makkah — Abū Baṣīr was a Muslim, and he fled from the mushrikūn and came to Madīnah. Three days later, two men came asking for him to be returned. One of these men was from Banū ʿĀmir ibn Luʾayy, one of the branches of Quraysh, and the other was a servant called Kawthar, who came with him to guide him. And they had a letter. The letter was presented to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him); Ubayy ibn Kaʿb (may Allah be pleased with him) read the letter: we have an agreement between us, and you have to return this man to us.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told Abū Baṣīr: you have to go back. Abū Baṣīr said: O Messenger of Allah, are you going to send me back to the disbelievers, to be tested in my religion? The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told Abū Baṣīr: we have an agreement with these people, and it is not proper for us to betray. Wa lā yaṣluḥu fī dīninā al-ghadr: betrayal is not allowed in our religion. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was not doing this for the kuffār; he was not doing it to please them. He was doing it because these are the rules of Islam. Even though the issue concerned the kuffār, these are the virtues and the rules of the Muslims: we do not betray. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was telling Abū Baṣīr: we cannot betray; in our religion this is not allowed. So the Muslim is bound by the rules of Allah (swt) in his dealings with Muslims and non-Muslims; we follow the rule of Allah (swt) in everything we do. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told Abū Baṣīr, just as he had told Abū Jandal, that Allah (swt) would find a way out for him; Allah (swt) would provide him with a way out.

So Abū Baṣīr left with these two men. When they reached a place called Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, where there is a masjid, it was the time of Ẓuhr, so Abū Baṣīr went and prayed two rakʿahs. He had some dates with him, and he told the two men who had come to take him, these mushrikūn: come and join me. So they brought out some bread they had, and they had a meal together. This man of Banū ʿĀmir pulled out his sword; in one narration it says he pulled out his sword and said: I am going to use this sword of mine to strike al-Aws and al-Khazraj from morning till night. Abū Baṣīr said to him: is it a good sword? He said: yes, it is, and I have tested it. Abū Baṣīr said: do you mind if I look at it? The moment the sword was in the hands of Abū Baṣīr, the man was dead. That is one narration. Another narration says that they went to sleep; Abū Baṣīr's hands were tied, so he pulled out the sword with his mouth, and then, holding the sword in his mouth, he cut the ropes tying his hands, and then he struck this man of Banū ʿĀmir and killed him. So these are the two narrations of how he killed al-ʿĀmirī.

The second man, Kawthar, when he saw that, just ran away, flying. It says in the narration of al-Wāqidī that rocks would fly from beneath his feet — that is how fast he was going — and he also says that he raised his garment so high that his private parts were seen. The man was so terrified; he was just flying. And he was not running in the direction of Makkah, because it was still far away; he was running towards Madīnah. And Abū Baṣīr was not able to catch him. Abū Baṣīr was running after him with the sword, trying to kill him, but the man was terrified. So he ran into the masjid, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, la-qad raʾā hādhā dhuʿran: this man has seen something that has terrified him. They asked him: what is wrong with you? He said: my companion has been killed, and this man is going to kill me too. And he was seeking their help, so they told him: calm down; do not worry.

Abū Baṣīr came in holding the sword in his hand, and he told the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him): O Messenger of Allah, you have fulfilled your pledge to them; you handed me over to them; you have done your part. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said — and this part is in al-Bukhārī; it is authentic — waylu ummih, misʿaru ḥarbin law kāna lahu rijāl: woe to his mother! He will kindle a war, if only he had men with him (al-Bukhārī 2731). The meaning of this statement is that Abū Baṣīr had the capability of starting a war if he had men with him. And what Abū Baṣīr understood from this statement was that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was going to hand him over again if he stayed. So he decided that he should leave, and he left.

Al-Wāqidī, by the way, says that Abū Baṣīr brought the belongings of al-ʿĀmirī to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), for him to divide them according to the rules of ghanīmah, the spoils of war. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) refused to take them and said: if I take them, then this is violating my agreement; it is up to you to do with it what you want. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) refused to take it, so it was Abū Baṣīr who took what had belonged to al-ʿĀmirī.

Now, Abū Baṣīr could not go back to Makkah: he had just fled from Makkah, and he had killed a man from Makkah. So what could he do? He went to the coast, alone, with no one with him, and all he had with him was a handful of dates. He split up that small handful of dates and ate from it for three days, and that was the only food he had. Al-Wāqidī says that Allah provided for him on the coast fish that would come to the shore, dead fish, and he survived by eating those fish. Subḥān Allāh, the story of Abū Baṣīr is amazing: a man alone on the coast, with no assistance, no help, and the people of Quraysh looking for him — and in that difficult, fearful situation, how Allah (swt) provided for him, gave him a way out, and gave him victory.

Abū Jandal heard about that, so he fled from Makkah and joined Abū Baṣīr, and then some other believers who were living under the tyrants fled, and they all joined Abū Baṣīr. And this would make Abū Baṣīr the first Muslim to wage guerrilla-style warfare in the history of Islam. These men started gathering. There is a narration, according to al-Wāqidī — al-Wāqidī is one of the scholars of the sīrah; however, his narrations do not meet the requirements of the ʿulamāʾ of hadith — but he mentions that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb led a letter-writing campaign to the Muslims living among the mushrikūn, calling them to join Abū Baṣīr, and he mentioned in the letter that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had said: woe to his mother, he would kindle a war if only he had men. So what ʿUmar meant by this was: you men should join him and fight.

Now they started carrying out operations, special operations, against the caravans of Quraysh. The news of these operations started to spread, and now men from Ghifār would join them, and then men from Juhaynah and from Aslam and from the different tribes — all of these young men who wanted to join this fight, this guerrilla warfare, were joining Abū Baṣīr, until he had an army three hundred strong. Three hundred men with Abū Baṣīr, and he was leading them in this war against the caravans of Quraysh. Whenever they heard of a caravan of Quraysh, they would attack it, take everything in it, and execute everyone in the caravan. Now the situation became unbearable for Quraysh.

And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not do anything. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was not involved in this at all. He did not condemn what Abū Baṣīr was doing; he did not tell him to stop. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was responsible for what was happening in Madīnah; he was not responsible for what was happening on the coast; it was not part of his territory. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not do anything to stop this.

And by the way, when the news reached Quraysh that Abū Baṣīr had killed the man from Banū ʿĀmir ibn Luʾayy, Suhayl ibn ʿAmr was very upset, because the man belonged to his tribe. So he put his back against al-Kaʿbah and said: I am not going to move my back until the diyah, the blood money, is paid for this man — and Muḥammad should pay it. Abū Sufyān said: this is insanity. What does Muḥammad have to do with this? Muḥammad did his part: he refused to allow Abū Baṣīr to stay in Madīnah, and he returned him. Muḥammad (peace be upon him) did his part according to the agreement. So the Muslims were doing the bare minimum required of them by the contract, but they were not going to pay any blood money, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was not going to tell Abū Baṣīr to stop what he was doing. So Suhayl ibn ʿAmr said: then Quraysh should pay his blood money. Abū Sufyān said: why should Quraysh pay it? It was Banū Zuhrah who sent him. So he said: then Banū Zuhrah should pay it. Al-Akhnas ibn Sharīq, the head of Banū Zuhrah, said: we are not going to pay anything. So the blood money for this man was lost, and Suhayl ibn ʿAmr received nothing.

See how the qadar of Allah was working things in favour of the Muslims and in favour of Abū Baṣīr. The people of Quraysh had seen those conditions in the agreement as a victory for them, and they would come to regret them. Now the situation was unbearable for Quraysh. Their caravans had barely had a break, and they had started to breathe fresh air and were able to do business again after a few years of war — and now suddenly a new problem came up: the problem of Abū Baṣīr. Because before Abū Baṣīr, before Ṣulḥ al-Ḥudaybiyah, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had been threatening their caravans. The Battle of Badr occurred because the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) went for the caravan of Abū Sufyān, and many of the sarāyā, many of the expeditions the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) sent, had the purpose and objective of striking at the trade routes of Quraysh. Now, because of the peace agreement, Quraysh would finally be able to do business again — and they had this problem of Abū Baṣīr.

So they sent messages to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). Subḥān Allāh, see how they were turned to begging the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) now to change those conditions in the agreement — the conditions they had insisted on including. Now they were begging the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), asking him bi-ṣilat al-raḥim: in the name of our kinship, the relationship we have — we are relatives; we ask you in the name of our relationship to call these people in. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) sent a letter to Abū Baṣīr, inviting them to come back to Madīnah, and asking the men who belonged to the other Bedouin tribes around Madīnah to go back to their people. The letter reached Abū Baṣīr in his last moments. He was dying, and he died with the letter of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) on his chest. Allah did provide a way out for him. And Abū Jandal returned with the other Muslims to Madīnah. This is the promise of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him): he promised them that Allah would find a way out for them. The point is that the Muslims need to follow the commands of Allah (swt), and Allah (swt) will provide a way out for them.