The Plot Against Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, "Who will rid me of Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf? He has offended Allah and His Messenger." Muḥammad ibn Maslamah, one of the Anṣār, volunteered: "I will, O Messenger of Allah" — and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) assigned him this mission. Muḥammad ibn Maslamah, in the narration of al-Bukhārī, and Abū Nāʾilah, in the narration of Ibn Isḥāq, went to Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf and visited him alone. He said: "This man's arrival among us was a disaster" — he is talking about the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). "This man's arrival among us was a disaster. The Arabs became hostile to us and united against us. They have cut off our means, so that our young are deprived and scared. We and our families are suffering greatly." This is how Muḥammad ibn Maslamah was trying to win over the trust of Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf. Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf said, "I am al-Ashraf's son: did I not tell you that things would turn out this way?" Abū Nāʾilah said what he wanted was for Kaʿb to sell them some food, for which they would give him security, a pledge, because they were in need. Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf said, "Pledge me your women" — as a security, a pledge that they would pay him back. They said, no way, they could not hand over their women to him, and he was such a handsome man and all that. So he said, "All right, what else will you pledge? Pledge your sons." They said, no, they could not pledge their sons and keep their children with him, because afterwards there would be a stigma on them for the rest of their life, that they were left as hostages for some small amount of food. So Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf said, "Then what do you want to pledge? What security will you give me to make sure you will pay me back?" They said, "We'll bring our weapons" — and weapons were expensive, so that was a good deal. Muḥammad ibn Maslamah and Abū Nāʾilah said they would pledge their weapons, because they did not want Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf to be suspicious when they brought their weapons.

This was all part of the plot. So they went back and arranged a team of five men, and they visited Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf at night, at the appointed time, to deliver their weapons and receive the food. Kaʿb heard the calling of Abū Nāʾilah, who was his brother in nursing, from breastfeeding — in Islam, when a woman nurses two children, they are considered brothers through that nursing, riḍāʿ. So this was the relationship of Abū Nāʾilah to Kaʿb. He calls Kaʿb at night; Kaʿb had just got married, so he stood up to respond to the call. His wife told him, "Where are you going at this time of late hour at night?" He said, "This is my brother Abū Nāʾilah calling me." She said, "I can hear blood dripping from his voice." He said, this is his brother Abū Nāʾilah, and if a man is called at night he should respond, meaning even if there is some evil intention, a man should respond to that. But Kaʿb was not suspicious — Kaʿb trusted Abū Nāʾilah because of the blood relationship they had, and also because he thought they were aligned with him against the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). So he goes down, and they talked to him for some time, and then they said: "Kaʿb, how about we go and take a walk in Shiʿb al-ʿAjūz?" He said, all right, fine. So they wanted to take him away from his fortress, because he was living in a fort, and he was in a state of war with the Muslims, so he had guards and protection — they wanted to take him away from that.

So they started walking away from his fort, and it was late at night. Abū Nāʾilah, or Muḥammad ibn Maslamah, depending on the narration, puts his hand in the hair of Kaʿb. Why did he do that? He asked Kaʿb, "What is this beautiful smell that is coming from you?" He said, "Well, I was with this woman who was the most beautiful, and all of that, and I had this scent on." So he said, "Would you allow me to smell it?" He said, "Go ahead." So he grabbed his hair to smell this perfume, and he had already agreed with his men that this would be the signal for when to attack. So after they walked for a while, he said, "Can I smell it again?" And Kaʿb said, "Go ahead." So this time he grabbed his head and said, "Attack him," and they started stabbing him with their swords — but apparently he had armour on, so they were not able to kill him, and he was screaming very loudly, and now suddenly all the lights were going up in the fortresses. Then Muḥammad ibn Maslamah said: "I had a knife with me, and I stabbed him in his lower abdomen, and I cut his abdomen open until he fell down." When they realised the man would die, they left. One of them, however, had been stabbed by mistake by one of their own swords, and while they were rushing away — because, as has been said, he screamed, and now all of the forts were, as it were, all going to respond to the call of Kaʿb — this man who was injured was losing a lot of blood and becoming weaker, so they had to carry him. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) met them at the outskirts of Madīnah, and he immediately placed his hand on the injury, and it was healed.