غزوة الرجيع

In Safar 4 AH, a delegation from the tribes of Adhal and Qara came to the Prophet ﷺ claiming Islam had spread among their people and requesting teachers. He sent six (or ten) companions — accomplished Quran reciters and teachers. The request was a deception: Banu Lihyan had hired the delegation to lure the Muslim teachers into their territory for capture and sale to the Quraysh. When the ambush was revealed, the Banu Lihyan called out that they wanted prisoners, not blood, and swore by Allah they would not kill those who descended. Several companions descended on the strength of the oath and were killed immediately. Three were taken captive and marched to Mecca: Khubayb ibn Adi, Zayd ibn al-Dathina, and a third. They were sold to Qurayshi families seeking revenge for those killed at Badr. Khubayb ibn Adi, held in the house of the al-Harith family, asked permission to pray two raka'at before his crucifixion. He prayed them completely, then said: 'By Allah, if I were not afraid you would think I was prolonging my time, I would pray more.' His two raka'at before execution became the model for what Islamic tradition calls the martyr's final prayer, a practice he established. Before he died he called out a curse against the Quraysh by name, then recited: 'I do not care, when I am killed as a Muslim, in what manner I die — for the sake of Allah, and if He wills, He will bless the severed limbs.' Zayd ibn al-Dathina, when asked by Abu Sufyan whether he would prefer Muhammad in his place, said: 'By Allah, I would not prefer that Muhammad were struck by a thorn even if that spared me from what I am in.' Abu Sufyan said afterward: 'I have never seen a man so loved by his companions as Muhammad is loved by his companions.' The Prophet ﷺ made the qunut supplication at Fajr prayer for one month against the tribes responsible, the most sustained expression of distress prayer in the seerah. The two disasters of Safar 4 AH — Raji' and Bi'r Ma'una in the same month — produced the most sustained prophetic supplication of distress recorded in the seerah, and established the qunut al-nazila as the formal Islamic response to collective calamity, practiced in mosques across the world ever since.