The words the Prophet ﷺ spoke while the dust of Al-Khandaq was still settling were short and unmistakable: from now on the Muslims would march on their enemies, not the other way around. It was not the announcement of a new strategy but the recognition of a new reality. The coalition that had mobilised ten thousand men had returned without a result. The disgrace of that failure could not be repaired. The tribes of Arabia understood power and they understood failure. And they had seen what the Muslims could achieve through deliberate planning and steadfastness. What followed was not a period of rest but of focused action, of settling accounts that had been left open and of establishing an authority that no coalition would dare to contest again.
The Expedition to Banu Mustaliq
In the sixth month of the year 6 after the Hijra, news reached the Prophet ﷺ that the Banu Mustaliq, a tribe of the Khuza’a, were gathering troops under the leadership of their chief al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar. The objective was an attack on Madinah. The narration of Musa ibn Uqba makes clear that the Prophet ﷺ did not wait for the tribe to march. He went out himself and intercepted them at a watering place called al-Muraysi, on the coast in the direction of Makkah.
The expedition later became known as Ghazwat al-Muraysi. The Prophet ﷺ reached the watering place and drew up his men in battle order. The two parties exchanged arrows. The Prophet ﷺ then gave the order to attack and the Banu Mustaliq were swiftly defeated. Al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar was taken captive, along with a great number of his tribe. Among the captives was his daughter Juwayriya bint al-Harith ﵂.
Juwayriya ﵂ fell to the share of Thabit ibn Qays ﵁ and made an agreement with him for her ransom. She went to the Prophet ﷺ to ask for help in paying the ransom.
When the Sahaba ﵃ heard that Juwayriya ﵂ had become the in-law of the Prophet ﷺ, they freed the captives of the Banu Mustaliq they held, because it was not fitting to keep the family of the wife of the Prophet ﷺ in slavery. Through this single marriage, a hundred households of the Banu Mustaliq were freed. Aisha ﵂ later said of her: “I do not know of any woman who was a greater blessing for her people than she.”
The Affair of the Ifk
The return from the expedition to Banu Mustaliq brought with it a trial that would tear at the community in Madinah for months. It began with an incident that seemed simple but had consequences no one had foreseen.
On the way back, it was the Prophet’s ﷺ custom to determine by lot which of his wives would accompany him. The lot had fallen to Aisha ﵂. During a halt on the route, she left her howdah to look for a necklace she had lost. When she returned, the caravan had already moved on, assuming that she was inside her closed howdah. She was left behind and waited. Safwan ibn al-Mu’attal ﵁, who came along behind the army to guard the rear, found her and brought her on his camel back to Madinah, while he himself walked on foot.
This was what had happened. But Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, the head of the hypocrites of Madinah, seized upon the situation and spread a slander that ran like fire through the community. The accusation was grave. The Prophet ﷺ heard of it, the Sahaba ﵃ heard of it, and Aisha ﵂ herself was the last to know what was being said about her.
Aisha ﵂ later narrated that after her return she had fallen ill and only after weeks did she hear what was being circulated about her. She asked permission to go to her parents’ house and wept there day and night. The Prophet ﷺ allowed a period of uncertainty to continue that was heavy on everyone. He ﷺ consulted his Sahaba ﵃ and members of his household.
The Prophet ﷺ then ascended the minbar and addressed the community concerning the people who were spreading the slander. The community had become divided and tensions had arisen between the Aws and the Khazraj. Aisha ﵂ herself, when her father advised her to praise the Prophet ﷺ for his patience, refused to praise him and instead praised Allah ﷻ.
Then Allah ﷻ revealed her vindication. Aisha ﵂ narrated: “The revelation came down upon the Prophet ﷺ while he was sitting beside me. When it was over he stood up smiling and his first words were: ‘O Aisha, Allah has acquitted you.’” The revelation left no room for doubt.
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ جَآءُو بِٱلۡإِفۡكِ عُصۡبَةٞ مِّنكُمۡۚ لَا تَحۡسَبُوهُ شَرّٗا لَّكُمۖ بَلۡ هُوَ خَيۡرٞ لَّكُمۡۚ لِكُلِّ ٱمۡرِئٖ مِّنۡهُم مَّا ٱكۡتَسَبَ مِنَ ٱلۡإِثۡمِۚ وَٱلَّذِي تَوَلَّىٰ كِبۡرَهُۥ مِنۡهُمۡ لَهُۥ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٞ
Indeed, those who came forth with the slander are a group among you. Do not think it bad for you, rather it is good for you. For each one of them is what he has earned of sin, and he among them who took on the greatest share of it shall have a great punishment.
Surah Al-Nur: 11
Those involved in spreading the slander, among them Hasan ibn Thabit ﵁, Mistah ibn Uthatha ﵁ and Hamna bint Jahsh ﵂, were given the hadd punishment. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul escaped the punishment in this life because of his position, but his fate in the Hereafter had been sealed by Allah ﷻ.
The Expeditions to Banu Lihyan and Dhu Qarad
The period after Al-Khandaq was marked not only by major military operations but also by targeted expeditions that settled specific accounts and tested the borders of Islamic influence.
The expedition to the Banu Lihyan was a direct response to an old injustice. In the fourth year after the Hijra, seventeen Sahaba ﵃ under Asim ibn Thabit ﵁ and Khubayb ibn Adiy ﵁ had been treacherously killed at al-Raji after their protection had been promised. The Banu Lihyan, a tribe of the Hudhayliyyin in the area of Mount Tihamah, had been responsible. The Prophet ﷺ had postponed the reckoning until the moment he had the strength to actually march.
Now he set out with two hundred men in the direction of the territory of the Banu Lihyan. He first travelled in the direction of Syria, so that it appeared he was heading north, and then turned in the direction of the Banu Lihyan. But the tribe had been warned and had withdrawn into the mountain peaks. The Prophet ﷺ reached their dwelling area, did not find them and returned after circling through their region to show that he could reach them whenever he wished.
Dhu Qarad was of a different nature. A group of hostile riders, with ties to the Ghatafan, had carried out a raid on the camel herd of the Prophet ﷺ at the pasture of Ghabah, north of Madinah. The shepherd boy had been killed and a woman of the Sahaba ﵃ had been taken. The Prophet ﷺ immediately sent a scout and then called to arms.
Salama ibn al-Akwa ﵁ was one of the first to give chase to the attackers. He was an exceptional runner and kept the riders at bay by harassing them with arrows while running on foot.
Most of the camels were recovered. The expedition to Dhu Qarad lasted only a few days but once again established the message that raids on the property of the Muslims would not go unpunished.
The Growing Authority of the Islamic State
The period between Al-Khandaq and Hudaybiyya was one of steadily growing influence. The handling of every threat, however small, sent a message to the tribes of Arabia: the Islamic state in Madinah was no longer a religious community searching for survival but a political and military power to be reckoned with.
Diplomatic activity increased. Delegations came to Madinah. Tribes that had previously been hostile or neutral sought contact. The expeditions of the Prophet ﷺ to the borders of his sphere of influence, to the coast, to Najd, to the routes leading to Syria, had drawn a map of what he was prepared to defend and to claim.
The Khuza’a, the tribe to which the Banu Mustaliq belonged and which had long held an alliance with the forefathers of the Prophet ﷺ, renewed its bond with Madinah in this period. That was politically significant: the Khuza’a lived in the area around Makkah and had a long-standing feud with the Banu Bakr, who in turn were allied with the Quraysh. An Islamic alliance with the Khuza’a was a chess piece on the board that touched Makkah closely.
The hypocrites in Madinah, whose leader Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul had completely lost his credibility after the Ifk affair, were no longer a serious threat. They remained an annoyance but their influence in the community had vanished. The community of Madinah had been cemented by the trials of the preceding years around the Prophet ﷺ in a way that no longer permitted any internal undermining.
It was in this context, of growing self-confidence and increasing regional power, that the Prophet ﷺ in the year 6 after the Hijra took a decision that surprised his Sahaba ﵃ and disturbed his enemies: he would travel to Makkah, unarmed, for the Umrah.
The Road to Hudaybiyya
The decision to perform the Umrah was not purely religious in character, although the religious dimension was real. The Prophet ﷺ had seen the Sahaba ﵃ in a dream while they were performing rites at the Ka’bah in safety. The dream of a prophet is revelation. But the timing and the execution also carried a political weight that could not be missed.
The Prophet ﷺ set out with about fourteen hundred Sahaba ﵃, taking the sacrificial animals with him, in the state of ihram. He chose a route that placed the Quraysh before a choice they could not make easily: block the Islamic state at its pilgrimage, before the eyes of all of Arabia, or let it pass through to the holy city that the Quraysh considered their own. There was no good option for them.
This was the turning point in its most complete form: not only a military shift but a shift of initiative, of narrative and of authority in the region. The Prophet ﷺ was about to prove that he could set the terms of his relationship with Makkah, not the Quraysh. What would follow at Hudaybiyya, a treaty that the Sahaba ﵃ regarded as a defeat and that the Prophet ﷺ called his greatest victory, was the fruit of everything that had been built in the years before.