051 - Massacres of Al Raji & Bir Ma'una

We will move on to the next two major incidents both of which involve massacres — large
groups of sahaba being brutally killed; and these are called the Incident of al-Raji (‫ )الرجيع‬and the
Incident of Bir Ma'una (‫)بئر معونة‬.

It appears the 'apparent loss' of Uhud made some of the Bedouin tribes around Madinah greedy
(that they will be able to attack Madinah now). Recall the Bedouins by and large earned their
income by raiding and stealing.

Also there appears to be religious animosity now — we have seen this a little bit at Uhud, but
now it's going to go more and more where ultimately it will become an all out war between Islam
and shirk (whereas before it was a war between the Muslims and the Quraysh).

A number of small skirmishes took place. Of them, the Prophet PBUH sent 150 Muslims to
attack and conquer a small tribe of the Banu Asad (‫)بنو أسد‬. Their leader was Tulayha al-Asadi
(‫ — )طليحة األسدي‬and he was one of those who proclaimed prophethood after the Prophet PBUH
passed away; he was one of those 30 dajjals.

The main two stories that we will discuss today, as we said, are the Incident of al-Raji & the
Incident of Bir Ma'una. Al-Raji & Ma'una are both wells around which the massacres took place.

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The Expedition of Abdullah ibn Unays

Regarding al-Raji (‫ — )الرجيع‬the beginnings of the incident actually go back a little bit; we need to
discuss the Expedition of Abdullah ibn Unays first:

The tribe of Hudhayl (‫)هذيل‬, a large Bedouin tribe in the north, had started planning an attack on
Madinah. Their chieftain Khalid ibn Sufyan al-Hudhali (‫ )خالد بن سفيان الهذلي‬began gathering a small
army to surprise attack Madinah. The Prophet PBUH decided to preemptively attack him and
execute him, so he PBUH chose Abdullah ibn Unays al-Juhani (‫)عبد هللا بن أنيس الجهني‬, just one
man, to get rid of the chieftain. The Prophet PBUH said, "You will find him in the Valley of Arana
(‫ — ")عرنة‬Allah told him. And so Abdullah asked, "What does he look like?" The Prophet PBUH
said, "When you see him, you shall feel more terrified than you have ever been at anybody's
appearance." (The Prophet PBUH had never seen him, but obviously Allah told him.) So
Abdullah said he took his sword and headed towards the valley. Abdullah said, "When I saw him
in the distance, I had never been as terrified of anybody's shackle as this man's. So I said, 'Allah
and His Messenger has spoken the truth.'" It was Zuhr when he saw him in the distance, and
because he was worried the time of Zuhr would go away, he prayed as he was walking, and he
just made gestures with his head. Therefore he prayed the first time in Islamic history a type of
salah that was later called one version of Salat al-Khawf (‫)صالة الخوف‬, where if you cannot stop
and face the qibla, you just pray as you are.
He got close to Khalid ibn Sufyan and he asked Khalid if he was actually gathering an army and
then said, "Let me also join your army" — it's a ruse. And then when the time was right, he got
rid of him. Khalid only had a few people with him at the time, so it was relatively easy for
Abdullah to do it. So he went back and as soon as the Prophet PBUH saw him, he made du'a
for him and gifted him a staff and said, "This shall be the sign between me and you on the Day
of Judgement." So Abdullah ibn Unays never ever from then on let the staff out of his sight. And
when he died, he was buried with the staff in his grave.

This incident will lead to the Massacre of al-Raji; but before we get there, let us mention three
quick lessons from the Expedition of Abdullah ibn Unays.

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Lessons From the Expedition of Abdullah ibn Unays

1. Again and again we see the miracle of the Prophet PBUH — he knew the right location,
physical details, etc. of Khalid ibn Sufyan, even though he has never seen him.

2. The Prophet PBUH chose the right person for the job.

3. The sahaba made ijtihad about fiqh even during the lifetime of the Prophet PBUH. This is a
clear evidence about the legal permissibility of making ijtihad — even when the Prophet PBUH
was alive ijtihad was done. And there are many places where this happened. Sometimes the
Prophet PBUH would affirm the ijtihad made, or sometimes he would fine-tune it e.g. it is said
Ammar ibn Yasir, when he fell junub in the desert and he did not have any water, he made
ijtihad that, "If we do tayammum (‫ )تيمم‬for wudu, I guess we must do tayammum for ghusl as
well." So he took his clothes off and rolled around in the sand. When he told the Prophet PBUH
this, the Prophet PBUH laughed and said, "All you needed to do was this"—and he PBUH
showed him the proper way to do tayammum for ghusl. This shows us the legal permissibility of
extrapolating from the Quran and sunnah to cater to situations that the Quran and sunnah don't
explicitly tell us about. And therefore this shows us the basis of our religion being applicable in
all times and place through the medium of ijtihad.

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The Incident of al-Raji

The Expedition of Abdullah ibn Unays occurred in Muharram of the 4th year of the Hijrah — they
killed the chieftain. How did the tribe of Hudhayl respond? They resorted to a very evil tactic in
order to get revenge. They contacted two other tribes: Udal (‫ )عضل‬and al-Qara (‫)القارة‬, and they
paid them some money to set up a blatant, dastardly trap. It was a simple plot: Pretend to
accept Islam, go to Madinah, and then beg the Prophet PBUH to send you teachers to come
back and teach you the religion — they knew that the sahaba loved to go and teach, and that
the Prophet PBUH would send teachers (Quran teachers, salah teachers, etc.) to the people.
So Udal and al-Qara did this, and they insisted to get as many of the teachers the Prophet
PBUH could afford to send. So 7-10 sahaba (most likely 10) volunteered under the leadership of
Asim ibn Thabit (‫)عاصم بن ثابت‬. When these sahaba got to the Well of al-Raji, 100 warriors
ambushed them, so they realized this was a trap, a set up, not an actual, sincere conversion.
When they saw the 100 coming in the distance, the sahaba managed to take shelter at the top
of a hill, and they pulled out their bows and arrows. But in the end, when you have 10 people
surrounded by 100, eventually what is going to happen? And the plot thickens because Asim
had killed, in the Battle of Uhud, the husband of a certain pagan lady by the name of Sulafa bint
Sa'd (‫)سالفة بنت سعد‬. She had promised she will drink wine from the skull of Asim, "I am not going
to die until I drink wine from the skull of Asim!" and in her vengeance she had said, "Anyone
who brings me the skull of Asim, I will give 100 camels!" Asim knew this, so he cried out and
made a du'a to Allah SWT, "I will not surrender to them, because I know what they will do to my
body. I will fight to the death. O Allah, inform our Prophet PBUH about us that we were sincere;
that we didn't die cowards." And he said, "O Allah, as I protected Your religion in the daytime
(when I was alive), now protect my body at night (when I die)," i.e. "Protect my skull from being
used as a wine glass for the lady." And he fought with his bows and arrows until the arrows ran
out, and he fought with his spear until it broke, and he fought with his sword until it became dull
— he fought a brave battle. But eventually what is going to happen when you are surrounded by
10:1? Eventually he died.

When Asim died, everybody rushed to get his body to get the 100 camels reward, but out of
nowhere a swarm of wasps came and they would sting anyone who came close. So they said,
"What do we do?" One said, "Just wait until the sun sets. Wasps don't hang around at night."
And so they waited until the sun set, but subhan'Allah, out of nowhere a river just came. It had
not rained and there was no river, and his body was on top of a hill, yet the river just came
gushing out, and it went straight to his body, picked his body up, and carried it off into the
distance. And no one knows where his body is buried — Allah took care of his burial. This is
Asim ibn Thabit; he died a shaheed.

Back to the battle: The pagans killed the sahaba down to the last three, and they said, "Just
surrender now." Why did they want the three to surrender? For ransom; for money. And they
promised, "If you surrender, we will protect you and give you safety." And so the three decided
to surrender; they were Khubayb ibn Adi (‫)خبيب بن عدي‬, Zayd ibn al-Dathinah (‫)زيد بن الدثنة‬, and
Abdullah ibn Tariq (‫ — )عبد هللا بن طارق‬they came down from the hill. But immediately, the pagans
jumped on them and tied them up like animals. Abdullah ibn Tariq said, "This is the first sign of
treachery," and so he refused to become a prisoner of war, he refused to walk and march, he
refused every commandment. So they just killed him there and then and left him at the side of
the road. As for the other two, they found out who wanted to purchase them — Khubayb was
purchased by the tribe of Banu al-Harith (‫ )بنو الحارث‬as he had killed someone from this tribe
during the Battle of Badr; and Zayd ibn al-Dathinah had been one of those who had attacked
Umayyah ibn Khalaf the master of Bilal (recall the story of Bilal after the Battle of Badr where he
said, "I am not going to live if Umayyah lives" — and Zayd was one of those who surrounded
and killed Umayyah), so Safwan ibn Umayyah purchased him for a large sum in order to kill him
for having been one of the people who killed his father.

So both Khubayb and Zayd became prisoners just to be executed in a short period of time.

Khubayb remained a prisoner amongst the Banu al-Harith until they announced they will kill him.
So he asked for a shower, and a razor to get rid of pubic hair etc. to basically meet Allah clean;
and they allowed him this. As he was sitting there with the razor in his hand, a baby came up to
him. The mother, when she saw this from the distance, she cried out in fear that Zayd might kill
her child. Khubayb said, "Are you scared that I will kill this child? Wallahi, I will never do
something like this." And the same mother later on said, "I have never seen any prisoner more
noble than him in his akhlaq and manners. And I saw him tied up, eating from a bunch of grapes
— and wallahi, there was no bunch of grapes in Makkah at the time"—it was sustenance that
Allah SWT had given him. When they brought him on to be killed, he said, "Allow me to pray two
rak'at." When he finished, he said, "Were it not for the fact that you would think that I am being
cowardly, I would have prayed a longer two rak'at. But I don't want you to think I am scared of
death," and so it was a short two rak'at. And Khubayb was the one who started this sunnah of
praying two rak'at before being executed. This is also ijtihad from the sahaba that later on was
accepted and approved by the Prophet PBUH.

As for Zayd, he is back with the Quraysh. They really made a big festival out of killing him — the
whole people of Makkah took a day off to torture and kill him. And this is when that famous
incident that we all know took place: Abu Sufyan said when Zayd was tied up and was about to
be lanced to death, "I ask you by Allah, tell me the honest truth! Don't you wish right now that
Muhammad was in your place, and you are with your family and children?" And Zayd gave that
fully honest response with that Iman that only a Muslim can have: "Wallahi, I would rather die
like this than the Prophet PBUH get a thorn prick right now where he is sitting." And Abu Sufyan
later on said, "I have never seen any leader that is more beloved to his people than Muhammad
is with his companions." (And he was not the only one to say this; indeed every single
non-Muslim who witnessed the respect that the sahaba gave to the Prophet PBUH used to say
this.)

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Lessons From the Incident of al-Raji

From this incident we learn many things:

1. In such situations, should you surrender or fight on? We see that permissibility has been
given for both. Whichever one a person chooses, insha'Allah there is precedent in that, and all
of them are rewarded for what they have done.

2. We learn from the action of Abdullah ibn Tariq that it is not considered suicide to do
something that you know will cause your death as long as it is at the hands of somebody else.
3. The concept of karamat (‫ — )كرامات‬mini-miracles given to the non-prophets; they are things
Allah blesses the believers of a prophet with. We see many in the seerah, and in this incident
we see two: (i) out of nowhere wasps come and then out of nowhere a river comes; and (ii)
Khubayb eating grapes appearing out of nowhere.

4. We see the love the sahaba had for not just the Prophet PBUH but even for following the
sunnah up until the time of their death. Khubayb was about to die but he wants to purify himself.

5. The sunnah of praying two rak'at before execution.

6. Treachery and killing children and women is never something that our religion allows. On the
verge of execution, many people would say, "Let me just kill people along with me," but this is
completely wrong. Khubayb was shocked when the mother screamed; and he couldn't believe
that the mother would think he would do something to her child, so he asked a rhetorical
question. It's as if he's insulted —even though he's the prisoner— that the mother thought he
would do such a dastardly deed. Our shariah is very explicit about the complete impermissibility
of the killing of innocents, especially women and children.

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The Incident of Bir Ma'una

What made this especially traumatic was that this second incident occurred at the exact same
time as the Incident of al-Raji, so much so —according to one report— the Prophet PBUH got
the news of both of them on the same night. And it was a tragedy —in terms of quantity— much
worse than al-Raji, and that is the Incident of Bir Ma'una (‫( )بئر معونة‬also spelled Bi'r Ma'una). And
in actual fact, it was the worst massacre to occur in the seerah. A cold-blooded massacre of
Muslims. And the story is as follows: Around this time, one of the famous chieftains of Najd (‫نجد‬
i.e. northern Arabia) by the name of Abu Bara Amir ibn Malik (‫ )أبو براء عامر بن مالك‬came down to
Madinah. (Note: The people of Najd were known for many things, of them is that they weren't as
civilized as the Hejazis — this was the perception at the time.) Abu Bara stayed in Madinah for a
while and he was very impressed with Islam. The Prophet PBUH gave dawah to him, but he
was hesitant and said, "O Muhammad, if only you were to send a group of your companions to
the people of Najd and call them to this matter (Islam), I am sure a lot of them will respond to
your call. So send us your people and we will go and spread your message." So Abu Bara
guaranteed protection for du'at (‫ دعاة‬- preachers) in the Najd region. He opens up the doors for
Muslims to give dawah. He didn't accept Islam, but he said, "You have my word," and as we will
see, he was an honest man — he was not lying.

And how does the system work back then? Everybody who's allied with a tribe, if one of the
tribes give protection, all of the joined tribes automatically must also give protection. This is
called halif (‫ )حليف‬or plural: hulafa (‫)حلفاء‬. Let's say X and Y have a treaty (i.e. they are allies), and
if X extends protection to Z, then Y also has to protect Z. So Abu Bara is saying he has an
alliance with all of the people of Najd, and his protection should be good enough, because he is
a senior chieftain. But he did not realize at the time that one of the other chieftains hated Islam
so much that he was basically willing to invoke a civil war, as we will see.

Nonetheless this protection from Abu Bara was a big news for the Muslims. Why? Because the
province of Najd is bigger than the province of Hejaz; and the number of potential converts are
so much it will make the entire Islamic dynamics change.

The Prophet PBUH chooses 70 of the best of the qurra (‫ قراء‬- reciters) and du'at, because the
potential is so much. The majority of them are Ahl al-Suffa — these are indeed the cream of the
crop. Anas ibn Malik narrates the people who went there were "known for their Quran, known for
their tahajjud, known for filling up the buckets of the Ansar at night." They were the best of the
best, involved in charity in the day and ibadah in the night. And for the small city of Madinah, 70
was a huge amount, and the Prophet PBUH chose them. Imagine, in Uhud Muslims had 700
fighting men, so 70 means 10% of them!

When the 70 of them got to the Well of Ma'una, they sent a letter through Haram ibn Milhan (‫حرام‬
‫ بن ملحان‬- a sahabi) to Amir ibn al-Tufayl (‫ )عامر بن الطفيل‬the chieftain of one of the local tribes of the
region. Amir ibn al-Tufayl was one of those arrogant chieftains who only wanted to accept Islam
on condition. It's said he had attempted to negotiate with the Prophet PBUH —either directly or
indirectly—, "I will accept Islam either if you take charge of the cities and leave all of the
Bedouin lands to me OR make me your chieftain after you die." Obviously the Prophet PBUH
refused to accept, and this only made Amir ibn al-Tufayl more arrogant. When Haram ibn Milhan
came to Amir, he had a generic letter of information that they are here. Everyone knew the
Muslims had been given protection. But when Amir heard these sahaba had come from
Madinah, he made an eye motion to one of his henchmen to kill Haram ibn Milhan. This is —if
you like— triple sin:

i) Haram ibn Milhan is a messenger; and by unanimous conventions of the world, messengers
are never harmed. (And to this day, as we know, ambassadors are never harmed.)

ii) Even if he weren't a messenger, he has protection from a more senior chieftain; and it is not
Amir's duty to interfere with that treaty. He knows it is breaking an agreement that he doesn't
have the right to break. (Note: In one book, it even says that the one who gave the protection
[Abu Bara] was in fact one of the uncles of Amir.)

iii) Amir did it secretly (by giving the motion) and Haram ibn Milhan had no clue.

So as Haram ibn Milhan is standing, basically waiting for the audience to be granted to him,
from behind, one of the Bedouins comes running with a spear, and he thrusts it in between
Haram's shoulder blades, and it comes right out in front of him. As soon as Haram sees this, he
instantly says, "I won (I am a shaheed)! By the Lord of the Ka'bah!" Look at his reaction. That
was the first thing that came to his mind. This means it was always on his mind and he's been
making du'a to Allah SWT that he wants to die a shaheed; so as soon as he sees the spear
coming through his body, he was so excited he cried out, "I won! By the Lord of the
Ka'bah"—and those were his last words. And it is said that one of the people who were there
who heard this phrase, it caused him to go asking the other Muslims about the phrase, and
eventually he accepted Islam. Indeed what type of religion is this that someone is happy at
dying.

Amir ibn al-Tufayl knows he is in trouble now — he has killed a messenger. And there are 70
people still there, and he needs to do something. So what does he do? He sends out messages
to any tribe that is willing to join forces with him to kill all 70 of this. And quite a number of them
refused because they knew Abu Bara had given protection; but three of the subtribes agreed:
Asiya (‫)عصية‬, Ra'l (‫)رعل‬, and Dhakwan (‫)ذكوان‬. They agreed to join forces with Amir ibn al-Tufayl
and attack the 70 sahaba at Bir Ma'una. Around 400-500 of them marched to Bir Ma'una and
they surrounded the 70 sahaba. The Muslims tried to defend themselves, but they hadn't come
for a battle, they hadn't come with weapons and armor, so eventually each and every one of
them were killed, except for three people:

1. Ka'b ibn Zayd (‫ — )كعب بن زيد‬they wounded him and he fell down unconscious; and the bodies
continued to collapse and pile up on him, so they didn't even know there was a person under all
of these pile of bodies. (We will come back to his story, but he eventually went back to Madinah
and died a shaheed in the Battle of Khandaq [5 AH].)

2. Amr ibn Umayyah (‫ — )عمرو بن أمية‬a Muhajir.

3. Al-Mundhir ibn Muhammad (‫ — )المنذر بن محمد‬an Ansari.

Amr and Mundhir had gone for an errand for a few hours (maybe to get some water, or maybe
for some other issue that the camp had sent them), and as they came back, they saw the
vultures in the air circling in front of where the sahaba had camped. They said, "Something is
wrong"—you are not going to have vultures coming unless there's a feast to be had. So they
began discussing, "What do you think we should do? Clearly there is danger. We don't know
what's happening. Should we walk in, or should we go back to the Prophet PBUH?" Amr the
Muhajir says, "I think we should go back to the Prophet PBUH in order to tell him that some
calamity has happened. Let's go back and get reinforcements." Al-Mundhir the Ansari says, "As
for me, I will not give up being in the place where my companions have been killed (i.e. they
were lucky enough to get shahada/martyrdom; I'm not going to give that up and just walk away
from that position), neither do I want other men telling about my story (i.e. I'm not going to be a
messenger that lives to tell their story while they got the actual blessing of getting
shahada/martyrdom)." And he in fact encouraged the Muhajir to come with him. So the both of
them walked in, and they were both caught. Eventually Mundhir was in fact killed, and for some
reason, Amr was allowed to go back. It's said that Amir ibn al-Tufayl (the evil chieftain) either
wanted a messenger to go back OR he had to free a slave anyway, so he chose Amr to free.
The point being: Subhan'Allah, the one who said, "Perhaps we should go back," Allah allowed
him to go back; and the one who said, "I want to become a shaheed," Allah AWJ made him
shaheed.

Amr on his way back met two people from the tribe of Amir ibn al-Tufayl walking back towards
Amir ibn al-Tufayl from Madinah. These two men that he meets have no idea what happened,
but Amr did not know this. Apparently the both of them had sought protection from the Prophet
PBUH and the Prophet PBUH had given it to them, but Amr didn't know that; and from his
perspective, these are people from the tribe that killed all 70 of his companions. So he tricked
them and killed both of them while they slept. Then he discovered a letter of protection from the
Prophet PBUH in their possession. And so he felt extremely bad, he went back to the Prophet
PBUH and broke the news of what happened. So Amr was the one who brought the terrible
news back to the Prophet PBUH. And as we said, al-Waqidi mentions that the Prophet PBUH
received the news of al-Raji and Bir Ma'una on the same night. 80 sahaba, both groups of them
have been massacred to death. They were people of the Suffa, and we know how close the
Prophet PBUH was to them. So the Prophet PBUH was greatly grieved, and he prayed every
single of the 5 daily salah with a special qunut (‫ )قنوت‬for all of the shuhada for one whole month.
He prayed for the shuhada, and he asked Allah AWJ to 'take care' and punish the four tribes
who killed the sahaba (i.e. Asiya, Ra'l, Dhakwan, and Banu Lahyan [‫)]بنو لحيان‬.

And this is one of those incidents where Allah AWJ revealed many verses in the Quran about
but for a wisdom known to Him He then abrogated. It's called Naskh al-Tilawah (‫ نسخ التالوة‬-
Abrogation of Quranic Text). We still have remnants of those verses in Sunan Abi Dawud. E.g.
hadith No. 2158: "‫( َمنْ يُبلِّ ُغ ِإ ْخوا َننا عنا أ َّنا أحْ يا ٌء في الج َّن ِة‬Who will go and tell our brothers that we are [safe
and] alive in Paradise?)"—so Allah SWT told the Prophet PBUH about them. The verses were
recited at the time, but then abrogated for a wisdom known to Him.

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Lessons From the Incident of Bir Ma'una

A number of benefits to derive:

1. We can say that the religion of Islam is not going to be spread without loss and sacrifice, and
that loss is going to be bitter and difficult to bear. If this was the case for the Prophet PBUH and
the sahaba, then how about in our times?

2. Compare the characters of Khubayb ibn Adi and Amir ibn al-Tufayl: Khubayb had in his hands
the baby and he could extract vengeance if he wanted to but he didn't; whereas Amir ibn
al-Tufayl was so filthy and evil-minded he killed a messenger who already had protection, and
then massacred 70 others. Such is the heart of Iman with the heart of kufr. The heart of Iman is
a heart of morality; the heart of kufr has no morality whatsoever.

3. Of the fiqh points we derive: The concept of qunut is something that the fuqaha (‫ فقهاء‬- Islamic
jurists) greatly differed over. When does one make qunut? As we know, each madhhab has its
position and now is not the time to get into this, but the Shafi'is say in Salat al-Fajr; Hanafis say
in the witr, and others have their positions as well. Allahu a'lam, but the strongest position is that
qunut is not linked to any prayer, rather, it is only done at times of general calamity — when
something afflicts the ummah. Everybody should make du'a for those afflictions. And frankly, this
is a sunnah that has been neglected by many many people. Anas ibn Malik narrated that the
Prophet PBUH, after the Incident of Bir Ma'una took place, he would stand up after ruku' in the
last rak'ah and he would make du'a qunut for the shuhada and against the tribes that had killed
them. So when is qunut done? It is done in the very last rak'ah. At what particular time? When
you stand up from ruku'. So when you say, "‫( ربنا ولك الحمد‬rabbana wa laka al-hamd)," then after
that, you raise your hands and you make du'a qunut. And qunut should be done for any distress
or calamity that the ummah is suffering from. And this is something that we should teach our
congregations; the Muslim ummah should know. For example, what's happening in Syria and
Palestine. Anything that might happen in the world, we should make qunut like our Prophet
PBUH made. And in Sh. YQ's opinion, qunut should not be done on a daily individual basis; it's
not something that is linked to Fajr or to witr. You just make qunut when situation arises for the
ummah. This is what we see here from the ahadith. But of course this is fiqh, and there are
different madhhabs as we know.

4. The Prophet PBUH clearly did not know ilm al-ghayb (‫ علم الغيب‬- knowledge of the unseen). He
sent 70 here and 10 there and he did not know they would die, even though he could describe
the chieftain etc. What Allah wants to tell him Allah will tell him. But our Prophet PBUH does not
know unconditional ilm al-ghayb. There's no question he knew more than any of us, and there is
no question Allah taught him things about this dunya and the akhira that would be ghayb for us
(recall the incident of al-Isra wal-Mi'raj), and Allah says in the Quran, "No one can grasp any of
His knowledge except what He wills" [Quran, 2:255]; but unconditional ghayb, no one knows
other than Allah AWJ. "Say, [O Prophet,] 'None in the heavens and the earth has knowledge of
the unseen except Allah'" [Quran, 27:65]. The incidents of al-Raji and Bir Ma'una are clear
evidence for this. The Prophet PBUH himself sent these 80 sahaba out, but he did not know
what would happen to them.

5. The two people who Amr had killed on the way back, the Prophet PBUH took responsibility
for their death and gave blood money to their relatives. This shows us a very profound lesson:
Don't blame a person for the crimes and sins of his tribe or people. The issue of collective guilt
— very relevant to our political situation and those who are angry at particular back-and-forth
that are going on. The two men were from the tribe of Amir ibn al-Tufayl, but they were
completely innocent; so the Prophet PBUH bears responsibility, pays the blood money, and
deals with the matter. And this clearly shows that, "No soul burdened with sin will bear the
burden of another" [Quran, 35:18] — You are not held accountable for what your tribe or nation
has done if you are not a part of that, if you don't participate, if you have nothing to do with that.

6. As for Amir ibn al-Tufayl, he died a very miserable and pathetic death. He was inflicted with a
type of leprosy that spread over his whole skin (it started from under the arm). So his own
people left him — he became a pariah. And it caused him to become delusional. And he died an
extremely painful and miserable death alone in the desert. Indeed for someone whom even the
Prophet PBUH made du'a against, how can he be saved. This is indeed the punishment of
Allah.

[Transcribed by Br. Safwan Khan & Faizan]

safwan-khan@hotmail.com
[Revised by Br. Syed Haq & MAR, March 2021]