The Fortress City

Khaybar was a cluster of fortified settlements approximately 150 kilometers north of Medina, inhabited primarily by Jewish tribes — many of them the Banu al-Nadir who had been expelled from Medina in 4 AH and had settled at Khaybar, where they continued organizing opposition to the Muslim community. In Muharram 7 AH — the year after Hudaybiyyah — the Prophet ﷺ led an army of approximately 1,400 fighters north to Khaybar. The expedition was not announced publicly; the destination was kept confidential to prevent intelligence reaching the defenders.

Khaybar's fortifications were its strength. The settlements were organized around a series of stone forts — Ibn Abi al-Huqayq, Naim, al-Sa'b, al-Zubayr, al-Watih, and al-Sulalim among them — each of which had to be taken separately. The campaign was a series of siege operations rather than a single pitched battle, and it lasted approximately a month.

The Standard and Ali ibn Abi Talib

The most celebrated moment of Khaybar in the hadith literature is the story of the standard. On one of the early days of the campaign, the Prophet ﷺ said: "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 companions spent the night speculating about who would receive it. In the morning, the Prophet ﷺ called for Ali ibn Abi Talib — who was suffering from severe eye pain and could barely see. The Prophet ﷺ applied his saliva to Ali's eyes, made du'a over him, and Ali's eyes were immediately healed. He then gave Ali the standard.

Ali ibn Abi Talib led the attack on the fortress of Qamus, the strongest of the Khaybar forts. The famous single combat of the battle occurred when Marhab — a renowned warrior of Khaybar who was celebrated in Arab memory as one of the most formidable fighters of his age — came out in full armor, reciting his own praises in verse. Ali met him and killed him. The fortress fell. Khaybar's military resistance collapsed, and the remaining forts surrendered without prolonged siege.

The Treaty of Khaybar

After the conquest, the Prophet ﷺ made an arrangement with the farming population of Khaybar — who were skilled date farmers and agricultural workers — that they could remain on their land on the condition that they gave half their harvest to the Muslim community. This sharecropping arrangement (muzara'ah) allowed the population to remain and work their land, and gave the Muslim community an annual income from the most productive date-growing region of Arabia. The arrangement continued until the caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who eventually relocated the Jewish population of Khaybar, citing a statement from the Prophet ﷺ that two religions could not coexist in Arabia.

Safiyyah bint Huyayy

Among the captives taken at Khaybar was Safiyyah bint Huyayy — the daughter of Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the Banu al-Nadir leader who had persuaded Banu Qurayza to break their covenant during the Battle of the Trench. Safiyyah was young and widowed; her husband Kinana ibn al-Rabi had been killed during the battle. The Prophet ﷺ offered her the choice of returning to her people or remaining with him as his wife; she chose to remain and became one of his wives. Her conversion and the Prophet's ﷺ marriage to her were another instance — like Juwayriyah at Banu al-Mustaliq — of mercy extended through the bond of marriage, integrating a formerly hostile community through the most personal of human relationships.

The Poisoned Meat

After Khaybar was taken, a Jewish woman — Zaynab bint al-Harith — prepared a roasted lamb and placed it before the Prophet ﷺ as a gift. She had poisoned it, focusing the heaviest dose in the shoulder meat (which she knew was the Prophet's ﷺ preferred cut). When the Prophet ﷺ took a bite, he stopped immediately and spat it out — narrations indicate that the meat told him it was poisoned, or that he perceived it through divine indication. He had the woman brought before him; she confessed, saying she had acted to test whether he was truly a prophet (in which case he would know) or a king (in which case the community would be rid of him). The Prophet ﷺ did not execute her immediately. A companion named Bishr ibn al-Bara had already swallowed his bite and died from the poison. Whether the woman was eventually executed on account of Bishr's death or pardoned is recorded differently in different narrations.

The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have said, in his final illness years later, that he could still feel the effects of the Khaybar poison — making the poisoning incident a contributing factor to his death, and making him therefore both a prophet and a martyr.

The Significance of Khaybar

The conquest of Khaybar was strategically important for several reasons beyond the military victory. It removed the principal base of organized Jewish opposition north of Medina — the Banu al-Nadir community that had been expelled from Medina in 4 AH and had spent the years since organizing the confederate coalition of al-Khandaq. With Khaybar in Muslim hands and the Banu al-Nadir leadership removed, the organized military threat from that direction was eliminated.

Economically, the sharecropping arrangement with Khaybar's farmers gave the Muslim community a reliable annual income from the date harvest that supplemented the community's resources significantly. The wealth of Khaybar — described in the hadith literature as substantial — was distributed according to the standard rules for conquered territory, with the Prophet ﷺ applying the Quranic provisions about fay' (land revenue without battle) to the agricultural settlement.

The standard-bearer story — Ali's eyes healed by the Prophet's ﷺ saliva, the prophecy of who would receive the standard fulfilled — became one of the most cited accounts of the Battle of Khaybar in the hadith literature and one of the strongest pieces of evidence within the tradition for Ali's special status. The Prophet ﷺ described Ali at Khaybar as one who "loves Allah and His Messenger and whom Allah and His Messenger love" — words with no equivalent in his description of any other companion in that context.

Sources: Sahih al-Bukhari (Kitab al-Maghazi, Kitab al-Jihad); Sahih Muslim; Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah; Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra