Battle of Banu al-Mustaliq (al-Muraysi')

The expedition against Banu al-Mustaliq in Sha'ban 5 AH began as a pre-emptive strike — the Prophet ﷺ received intelligence that their chief, al-Harith ibn Abi Dirar, was assembling warriors to attack Medina. The Muslim force surprised the tribe at the well of al-Muraysi', killed their fighters in a swift engagement, and took many captives and livestock. Among the captives was Juwayriyah bint al-Harith, the chief's daughter. The battle itself was brief. But three subsequent events on the expedition gave it permanent significance in the seerah. First: a dispute over water access between a Muhajir and an Ansar at a well quickly escalated into tribal calls — each man summoning his group. The Prophet ﷺ silenced it immediately: 'Leave this call — it is vile. It is the call of Jahiliyyah.' The pre-Islamic tribal identity, buried but not eliminated, had reasserted itself under pressure, and the Prophet's ﷺ response was swift correction. Second: Abdullah ibn Ubayy made open statements suggesting the Muhajirin would eventually be driven out of Medina — inflammatory language that reached the Prophet ﷺ through Zayd ibn Arqam. The revelation of Surah al-Munafiqun (63) confirmed the hypocrisy, condemned the statement, and validated the Prophet's ﷺ decision not to execute Abdullah on the grounds that he did not want it said that Muhammad kills his own companions. Third: Juwayriyah came to the Prophet ﷺ to request help with a contract of emancipation. He offered to pay her ransom himself and marry her. She accepted. When the companions learned she had become the Prophet's ﷺ wife, they freed every captive they held from her tribe — reasoning that the in-laws of the Prophet ﷺ could not remain enslaved. Aishah later said: 'I know of no woman who was a greater blessing to her people than Juwayriyah.' An entire captured people were freed through a single marriage, not through force or ransom negotiation, but through the Prophet's ﷺ decision to extend mercy into a relationship of family. The same expedition also initiated the incident of the ifk against Aishah. The expedition of Banu al-Mustaliq is one of the most instructive single campaigns in the seerah because of the density of significant events it contains — a pre-emptive military victory, a near-fracture of the Muhajirun-Ansar unity, a major act of prophetic mercy, a revelation about hypocrisy, and the beginning of the most painful personal crisis of the Medinan period, all within a single campaign of a few weeks.