Lessons From This Event

There are lessons from this event. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told the army to leave. The wisdom in this action is that if you don't keep people preoccupied with good, they're going to preoccupy themselves with evil. Now, since this fitnah was causing a lot of talk and rumours, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told the army to pack up and leave. And they marched for the entire day, and then they marched throughout the night, and then they marched in the morning. So when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told them to stop, they fell asleep immediately as their heads hit the ground. As soon as they touched the ground, they were asleep, because they were so exhausted. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) exhausted them out so that they would forget about talking about this incident. And this shows how the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) solved this problem.

Number two: it's important to protect the reputation of the Muslim community. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, "No, ʿUmar, I'm not going to kill him, because then people are going to say that Muḥammad kills his companions." He doesn't want to give people this impression. We want to bring people closer to Islam. We don't want them to think that if they become Muslim they're going to be killed by their leader, that they're going to be oppressed or wronged, that Muslims are going to rip them off or take advantage of them or trick them or fool them. No: you want the non-Muslim to feel that by becoming Muslim they're going to be with their brothers, and their leader will be their brother. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) doesn't want the enemies of Allah, or the non-Muslims, to hear about that — that Muḥammad is killing his companions. And even though ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy wasn't a companion of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) — he was a munāfiq — he is counted as a Muslim among the non-Muslims. He is part of the community of Madīnah, and people think that he's Muslim, because that is what he says, that is what he claims to be. He professes to being a Muslim, even if that's not true; but people don't know that.