The Night Attack

Now Banū Bakr wanted to seek revenge for the three of theirs who had been killed — and these were not just any three; these were some of the noblemen among them. One of the leaders of Banū Bakr was named Muʿāwiyah ibn Nawfal al-Dīlī^*. He was one of their leaders; he was not the only leader. In tribal societies, every small clan of the tribe has a shaykh, or an ʿarīf, a leader, the chief of the clan. So Muʿāwiyah ibn Nawfal al-Dīlī, who was from the branch of Banū Bakr that had lost these three men, attacked some people of Khuzāʿah. The word used here is people and not men, because in one narration it says that they were the elderly, and children, and women. And these were, as it says in the narration, next to the — the Ḥaram had stone markers to indicate where the land of the Ḥaram is — so these people were very close to those stone markers, but they were outside the Ḥaram.

Muʿāwiyah ibn Nawfal told his men: let us attack. And the rest of the tribe of Banū Bakr refused, and some of their chiefs refused. It was only Muʿāwiyah ibn Nawfal and his followers who did this, not all of Banū Bakr. It is important to keep this in mind, because of its implications for when war can be waged against an enemy. So here it is clearly stated that not all of Banū Bakr were involved in this betrayal — because it is a betrayal. There was a peace treaty between Quraysh and Muḥammad (peace be upon him), the Ṣulḥ of al-Ḥudaybiyah, and Banū Bakr and Khuzāʿah were part of that treaty, because each was in alliance with one of the two parties to the agreement. So what Muʿāwiyah was doing was a breach of this agreement; it was a breach of the truce of al-Ḥudaybiyah. Therefore many of his tribe refused to join in, and, as was also mentioned, the other chiefs of the tribe did not participate in it either. So they killed some of the people of Khuzāʿah.

Khuzāʿah fled and entered the Ḥaram, so now they were within the sacred bounds. And the Ḥaram was recognised by the people of the Jāhiliyyah: they used to consider it a grave sin to kill anybody inside the Ḥaram, or to kill anybody during the sacred months. There were four months of the year when no killing should happen; and there is the boundary surrounding Makkah within which no one should be killed, and that is all through the year — while within the four months, all over Arabia, no killing should happen. So now the people of Khuzāʿah were already within the Ḥaram.

So the people of Banū Bakr who were killing the people of Khuzāʿah with Muʿāwiyah told him: yā Muʿāwiyah, ilāhaka, ilāhaka — the Ḥaram, the Ḥaram. They were warning Muʿāwiyah, and they were in fact amazed at what Muʿāwiyah was doing. They said: innā qad dakhalnā al-Ḥaram, ilāhaka ilāhaka yā Nawfal — we have entered the Ḥaram; your god, your god, Muʿāwiyah. They were reminding him. What did Muʿāwiyah say? Look at the answer he gave them: lā ilāha al-yawm, yā banī Bakr, aṣībū thaʾrakum; fa-la-ʿamrī innakum la-tasriqūna fī al-Ḥaram, a-fa-lā tuṣībūna fīhi thaʾrakum. He said: there is no god today, O Banū Bakr; seek your revenge. By my life, you steal inside the Ḥaram — will you not seek your revenge therein? Muʿāwiyah was justifying what he was doing and telling them: you already steal inside the Ḥaram; how is it that now you are complaining that we are inside the Ḥaram? Now we have a reason for killing, and that is that we are seeking our revenge.

And the people of Khuzāʿah fled from Muʿāwiyah and his men until they entered Makkah itself, and they sought refuge in the house of Budayl ibn Warqāʾ al-Khuzāʿī. This was a man of Khuzāʿah who lived inside Makkah, so they went to him and sought refuge with him from this crime that had been committed against them.