Bashīr ibn Saʿd and Ghālib ibn ʿAbdullāh

The next sariyyah was the sariyyah of Bashīr ibn Saʿd. They were sent, thirty men, to Banū Murrah, in an area called Fadak. They were surrounded by an overwhelming force, and most of them were killed. Bashīr was injured, but he was able to retreat and go back to Madīnah. Because of this defeat that Bashīr and his sariyyah suffered, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) sent out another sariyyah, led by Ghālib ibn ʿAbdullāh.

On the way, they met a man called al-Ḥārith ibn Mālik. Now this man could be a spy, he could be a traveller — Allah knows. So Ghālib ordered that he be arrested. Al-Ḥārith ibn Mālik al-Laythī said: innamā jiʾtu musliman — I have come to accept Islam. Ghālib told him: if you are telling the truth, and you really came to become a Muslim, then being held captive for a day and a night will not harm you — because they only wanted to keep him for a day — and if you have other motives, then we are going to take our precautions. Because if he was a spy, he would disclose their location and their numbers, give out information to the enemy, and allow them time to mobilise their forces, gather and attack. These sarāyā depended on the element of surprise, because they were very small in number; and most of them were ambushes carried out suddenly, either at night or early in the morning, taking the enemy by surprise. And now they had been spotted by this man. So Ghālib held him as a captive.

Now there is a problem here. This man claims that he is a Muslim, and it is not allowed to take a Muslim for no sin and arrest him. But this was a necessary move on the part of the leader of the sariyyah, and he tried to explain it to this man. He told him: listen, if you are a Muslim, it will not harm you to be held captive for one day. Obviously, he did not want to take this man with them; he had to leave him in that spot. And he left with him, it says in the narration, a black man, and he gave this man instructions: if he resists, then cut off his head. So they had to hold him where he was, on the spot, so that no information would be leaked. It shows the precautions the Companions would take: they were very intelligent and wise, and they would not be tricked.

They carried on. And Jundub ibn Makīth narrates that he was sent to scout — to spy on the enemy — because they had arrived at the time of ʿAṣr. So Jundub climbed a hill, or a mountain, that overlooked the enemy, and he took a prone position, lying down, stretched out on the ground, so that the enemy would not see him. But one of the men among the enemy spotted Jundub. Jundub was lying down in this position without moving. This man saw him and told his wife: I see some dark object on that hill; go and check whether the dogs have taken any of our utensils. So she went and checked, and did not see anything missing. She said: the dogs have not taken anything.

He said: bring me my bow and my arrows. So he took an arrow, aimed at Jundub and shot him, and the arrow hit him — it says — either in his jabīn or his janb: jabīn means forehead and janb means side; the narrator was not sure. Anyway, Jundub says: so I pulled out the arrow and put it down, slowly, without making any movement. So the man aimed again and shot at Jundub another time, and this time he hit him in his shoulder. Jundub said: I pulled out the arrow and put it down, without moving. So the man said: laqad khālaṭahu sahmāy — my two arrows have definitely struck him; law kāna rabīʾatan la-taḥarraka — if he were a scout, he would have moved. One can see the discipline that Jundub had: struck twice by these sharp arrows, and not moving a bit, pulling them out slowly without making any noticeable movement. So this man was quite content and comfortable that this object, whatever it was, was not a human being. And then he told his wife: tomorrow morning, go and collect my two arrows, lest the dogs chew on them.

Jundub said: I remained in my position until it was night-time, and their camels and shepherds came back, and then they had their dinner and went to sleep; and that is when we attacked. So they attacked them while they were asleep. He said: we killed some of them, and then we took all of their camels, and whatever else, and made away with them. And then the remaining men who had not been killed gathered a force and pursued the Muslims. Jundub says that the forces they gathered were overwhelming — huge numbers — and they were pursuing us and getting very close to us, and there was no way we could fight such a number. He said: they brought forces against us that we could not handle. He said: while we were running away from them, we crossed a valley. There was no rain, and there were no signs of rain; nevertheless, Allah brought a flood into this valley that separated us from them. And we would look back and see them all standing on the other side of the valley, looking at us and unable to do anything. And they made it back safely to Madīnah.