Battle of Khaybar

The conquest of Khaybar in Muharram 7 AH was the defeat of the principal organized Jewish opposition north of Medina — primarily the Banu al-Nadir community expelled from Medina in 4 AH, who had settled at Khaybar's fortified settlements and spent the years since organizing the confederate coalition against Medina. The Prophet ﷺ led approximately 1,400 fighters north and conducted a series of siege operations against Khaybar's multiple stone forts. Before the assault on the strongest fort, he announced: 'Tomorrow I will give the standard to a man who loves Allah and His Messenger and whom Allah and His Messenger love — one through whose hands Allah will grant victory.' The next morning he gave the standard to Ali ibn Abi Talib, whose eye pain he healed by applying his saliva. Ali defeated the champion Marhab in single combat and the fort fell. After the military victory, the Prophet ﷺ arranged a sharecropping settlement with Khaybar's farming population — they kept their land but gave half the date harvest to the Muslim community annually, creating a significant ongoing income from Arabia's most productive agricultural region. Among the captives was Safiyyah bint Huyayy, daughter of the Banu al-Nadir chief who had organized the confederate siege of Medina; the Prophet ﷺ offered her marriage and she chose to accept Islam and become his wife — another extension of mercy through the bond of family that transformed a former enemy community into related people. A Jewish woman named Zaynab bint al-Harith also served the Prophet ﷺ a poisoned roasted lamb after the conquest; he perceived the poison and stopped eating immediately, but a companion who ate with him died from it. The Prophet ﷺ later attributed the effects of this poison as a contributing cause of his final illness — making him both a prophet and a martyr by the standard of Islamic theology. Khaybar's conquest also removed the primary armed threat north of Medina and allowed the Muslim community to direct its attention further: toward the Byzantine frontier (the Battle of Mutah followed within a year), toward Mecca (the Conquest came a year after that), and ultimately toward the transformation of all Arabia into the community that would carry the Prophet's ﷺ message to the world. The Ali ibn Abi Talib standard story — the prophecy, the healing, the description of him as one 'whom Allah and His Messenger love' — became one of the most celebrated accounts in the hadith literature and a central text in the theological discussions about Ali's unique status among the companions.