The Massacre of Bir Ma'unah

# The Massacre of Bi'r Ma'una

The Second Disaster of Safar 4 AH

The Bi'r Ma'una massacre occurred in approximately Safar 4 AH — the same month as the Raji' incident — and was the single largest loss of life the Muslim community sustained outside of a formal battle. Abu Bara' Amir ibn Malik — a prominent chief from the Banu Amir tribe — had come to Medina and heard the Prophet ﷺ present Islam. He did not convert but expressed positive interest and asked the Prophet ﷺ to send teachers to the Najd, promising his protection for them. The Prophet ﷺ was cautious: the Banu Amir's territory was far, and the Prophet ﷺ expressed concern about the safety of the mission. Abu Bara' insisted and pledged his personal protection (jiwar).

The Prophet ﷺ sent a group of seventy companions — the narrations are consistent on the number seventy — who were among the most accomplished in Quran, hadith, and Islamic teaching. The group was led by al-Mundhir ibn Amr al-Sa'idi. They traveled to the region of Bi'r Ma'una, a well in the Najd.

The Betrayal

When they arrived at Bi'r Ma'una, they sent one companion to deliver the Prophet's ﷺ letter to Amir ibn al-Tufayl, the nephew of Abu Bara' and one of the most dangerous military figures of the region. Amir ibn al-Tufayl killed the messenger immediately without reading the letter. Then he called the Banu Amir to attack the Muslim group; they refused, citing Abu Bara's protection. He then raised the surrounding tribes — Usayya, Ri'l, and Dhakwan — who had no obligation to honor Abu Bara's jiwar.

The attack came from all sides. The seventy companions fought and were killed almost entirely. Three survived through different circumstances: one had been sent away to herd the camels and returned to find the dead; he was killed after a struggle. Two others had been absent for different reasons; one was told the news and killed himself at the site of the massacre out of grief, choosing death with his companions. Amr ibn Umayyah al-Damri was captured and then released by Amir ibn al-Tufayl because his mother had pledged to free a slave, and Amir freed Amr as fulfillment of her vow.

Haram ibn Milhan's Death

One detail from the Bi'r Ma'una narrations stands out and was preserved in the hadith with care: Haram ibn Milhan, one of the companions, was struck by a spear from behind while delivering the letter. As the spear came through his chest and the blood poured out, he placed his hands in his own blood and rubbed it over his face and head, saying: "By the Lord of the Kaaba, I have succeeded." The words — expressing joy and success at the moment of martyrdom — are among the most cited expressions of the martyr's consciousness in Islamic tradition. Haram ibn Milhan died with the declaration of success, the blood of his wound, and the expression on his face that the narrators preserved.

The Prophet's Grief

The Bi'r Ma'una massacre was among the heaviest personal blows of the Medinan period. Seventy companions — teachers of Quran, people of learning and devotion — had been killed in an ambush on a peaceful mission. The Prophet ﷺ received the news through a narration that is among the most emotionally charged in the hadith literature: Jibril came to him and informed him. The Prophet ﷺ expressed grief that the companions themselves had not seen from him before or after: he made the qunut supplication at Fajr for a month against the tribes responsible — Ri'l, Dhakwan, Usayya — naming them explicitly in the prayer and calling on Allah for justice.

Anas ibn Malik narrated: "I never saw the Prophet ﷺ grieve more for anyone than he grieved for the companions of Bi'r Ma'una." The seventy companions who died at the well are remembered in the Islamic tradition as the shuhada' al-bi'r — the martyrs of the well.

The Quran's Response

The Quran initially revealed a verse about the Bi'r Ma'una martyrs that was recited for a period but not included in the final written text. The verse, preserved in the narrations, said: "Convey to our people from us: we have met our Lord. He was pleased with us and we are pleased with Him." This is classified among the mansukh al-tilawa (revelations whose recitation was abrogated) that are preserved in hadith but not in the final Mushaf. Whether or not the precise status of the verse, the content — the martyrs conveying their pleasure with Allah and His pleasure with them — was understood as a divine confirmation of their standing.

The two disasters of Safar 4 AH — Raji' and Bi'r Ma'una — came in the same month and together represented the worst period of loss for the Muslim community's scholarly class. The qunut al-nazila the Prophet ﷺ made for a month was the most sustained supplication of distress he performed during the entire Medinan period, and it was made for the seventy teachers of Bi'r Ma'una and the martyrs of Raji' together.

Abu Bara's Shame

Abu Bara' Amir ibn Malik — who had pledged his protection and in whose name the mission had been undertaken — received the news that his nephew Amir ibn al-Tufayl had violated his jiwar by raising the surrounding tribes. The Banu Amir had honored the protection and refused to attack; it was the allied tribes who had carried out the massacre. Abu Bara' reportedly expressed intense grief and regret, telling his nephew that he had shamed him and brought disgrace on the tribe by violating what he had guaranteed. The violation of a personally pledged protection — jiwar — was considered among the most dishonorable acts in Arabian culture; Abu Bara' died shortly after Bi'r Ma'una, the narrations say of grief over what his nephew had done in the same period when his guarantee had been in force. The massacre at Bi'r Ma'una violated the trust of a prophet, killed seventy of the Muslim community's best teachers, and brought dishonor to the man who had requested the mission.

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