Al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy and the Prisoners of War

The account returns to the prisoners of war. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), it is reported by Abū Dāwūd, said: had al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy still been alive, and had he spoken to me concerning these ill-smelling men, I would have released them for his sake. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) used the word natn, which means something that has a foul smell — that was the name he used to refer to these prisoners of war. This probably does not mean, literally, that they were foul-smelling; what is meant by it, figuratively speaking, is that disbelief is foul-smelling, since Allah has called it rijs, impurity — disbelief, in this sense, is an impure thing. The meaning of the hadīth, in any case, is this: if al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy had been alive, and had he interceded for these prisoners of war, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) would have released them for him. In it the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is showing that he was grateful to al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy, who was a disbeliever, because of his honesty and his good standing toward the Muslims, even though he was a mushrik, a disbeliever. This shows that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) would act toward a person according to that person's deeds: he would deal with good people kindly, and he would deal with evil people accordingly.

There is no going, in this, to either extreme — to the extreme of being incapable of showing anything to the kuffār but brutality, or, on the other hand, to acting in a way that shows only an interest in appeasing the disbeliever. A Muslim is to act in each situation and make a judgement in that situation according to whatever is the wisest method of action, overcoming feeling, overcoming the anxiety of being worried what other people will say, worried how one will be perceived, worried that one will be thought to have given Islam a bad name, worried about this and worried about that. All such considerations are set aside, in favour of doing what is right. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is saying, of al-Muṭʿim ibn ʿAdiyy: if this man had been alive, he would have released these prisoners of war for him.