was a voluntary one. No one should be obliged to take part in it. When Ibn Jaḥsh opened the secret letter, it read: ‘If you read this letter, proceed until you descend the valley of Nakhlah, between Makkah and Ṭā’if. There, watch the Quraysh, and gather for us information about them.’
Ibn Jaḥsh responded to this instruction with: ‘I hear and obey.’ He then informed the others that, on the orders of the Prophet (peace be upon him), they were to proceed to Nakhlah, south of Makkah on the route from Ṭā’if. None was required to participate against his will. He also told them that he himself would act on the orders of the Prophet (peace be upon him), even if he had to go it alone. However, all of the men voiced their willingness to participate. And so the expedition proceeded to Nakhlah, deep in the territory of the enemy, the farthest any Muslim force had ventured to penetrate so far. It was indeed a mission fraught with grave dangers, owing to the proximity of Nakhlah to Makkah, the fact that it lay on the Makkans’ trade route to Ṭā’if, and the smallness in number of the Muslims’ force. That explains the Prophet’s directive, that participation in the mission should wholly be voluntary.
This expedition took place in the sacred month of Rajab, in the second year of the Hijrah, about seven months after the expedition led by Saʿd ibn Abī al-Waqqāṣ. During these months, other expeditions did take place, including two led by the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself. But I have not included these expeditions in this group because it formed a unity in that all of the expeditions were directed against the commercial interests of the Quraysh. No sooner had Ibn Jaḥsh and his men descended the Valley of Nakhlah, than a Quraysh caravan, evidently coming from the south (Yemen), appeared, well stocked with goods and poorly guarded, because southern routes of Quraysh trade had never before been threatened by the Muslims. It was guarded by only four men. Ibn Jaḥsh and his company attacked the caravan, killing one man by the name of ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥaḍramī, and capturing two others, while the fourth fled to Makkah. Ibn Jaḥsh took the two captives and the caravan, and hastened northwards to Madīnah, lest the Quraysh should catch up with him.
When the Prophet (peace be upon him) saw the two captives and learned of the killing of ʿAmr al-Ḥaḍramī, he was visibly displeased and said to Ibn Jaḥsh: ‘I did not order you to conduct any fighting in the sacred month!’
The emphasis of the Prophet (peace be upon him) was not on fighting as such, but on fighting in the holy month of Rajab. This incident proved a major embarrassment to the Prophet (peace be upon him) initially, since it was considered scandalous to Arabian customs to conduct fighting during four holy months, of which Rajab was one. The incident caused a great row throughout Arabia. The Quraysh made the most of it in their propaganda war against the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the Muslims! ‘They claimed to be religious and now they are profaning the sacred months,’ they were clamouring.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) initially disassociated himself from the affair, had his stance publicly known, and refused either to deal with the captives or to accept his khums (or fifth of the booty). Ibn Jaḥsh and his men found themselves in a very difficult situation, and the Muslims did not make it easier for them. They rebuked and criticized them for having caused the Prophet (peace be upon him) such embarrassment.
3.5 The Qur’ānic Revelation on the Nakhlah Incident
However, the crisis was relieved by God’s Grace, in the following Qur’ānic revelation:
They question you concerning the sacred month, and fighting therein. Say: fighting therein is a great (sin). But to bar men from the way of Allah, And uphold disbelief in Him, and the Holy Mosque and expelling its people from it, that is indeed a greater (sin) in the sight of Allah. Indeed persecution (fitnah) is more heinous than killing people (in the sacred month)! They will not cease to fight with you till they turn you from your religion, if they could. [al-Baqarah 2: 217]
The above verse constituted a valid and most effective reply to the polemics of the Quraysh, that the Muslims, despite their claims to piety, had violated the holy month, killing and plundering their adversaries. The Quraysh, of all people, had no right to talk about sacred obligations, since they had totally disregarded the Arabian code of chivalry, by persecuting the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his followers, for no cause other than their saying: ‘God is our Lord.’ They had shown no regard for the fact that the Prophet (peace be upon him) and many of his followers were close relatives of theirs, as well as being men of honour and integrity. Moreover, a just war had its own rules. The Prophet (peace be upon him) and the Muslims were brought, by the verses just cited, to understand that the Quraysh intended the total annihilation of the Muslims, and that they should think more about the importance of their survival than about rules to do with the holiness of particular times or places. Their faith and their own lives, the life of the Prophet (peace be upon him), the principle of freedom from religious persecution, and the whole future of Islam, were all at stake.
The Nakhlah expedition proved to be a decisive turning-point, marking the end of light skirmishing between the Quraysh and the Muslims. More than any other encounter before it, Nakhlah intensified the frustrations of the Quraysh to a high pitch. They felt that if they were to maintain their eminence in Arabia, then they must get out to destroy the power of Muḥammad. The Prophet (peace be upon him), too, knew that he had crossed his Rubicon in his relations with the Quraysh, that he could only expect the worst from them, and that harsh, prolonged wars were ahead of him, which he must win if he was to survive at all.
4. THE RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE QURAYSH
As we noted, those four expeditions are grouped together even though the last one of Ibn Jaḥsh took place much later, because they were all primarily directed against the Quraysh. We now ask: did they achieve what they were meant to achieve? What were the Prophet’s major objectives in launching them in the first place? It would seem that these expeditions had very decisive and quick results on the following accounts:
a. Firstly, the once thriving international commerce of the Quraysh, the mainstay and backbone of their economic prosperity, was seriously disrupted. Their trade to Syria in the north, and Yemen in the south, were blocked and rendered unsafe. The Quraysh could do little to prevent this eventuality. As for the Muslims, they stood to lose nothing by effecting this blockade. Rather, they stood to perhaps gain some provisions and wealth in order to compensate for their lost wealth, and property at Makkah, which they had been forced to leave behind. In addition, this blockade made life difficult for the Quraysh.
b. Secondly, the Quraysh’s prestige among the inhabitants of Arabia at large, especially among the Bedouin tribes, was severely damaged. Some tribes who were not particularly friendly with the Quraysh, for example, Khuzāʿah who had long-standing feuds with the Quraysh, rejoiced at the humiliation that these expeditions had inflicted on the Quraysh, and began to ponder the possibility of allying with the emerging power of the Muslim community in Madīnah.
c. Thirdly, these expeditions achieved a strategic aim for the Prophet (peace be upon him), namely provoking and inciting the Quraysh to the battlefield, where their political, religious and moral authority in Arabia might once and for all be tested and defeated. Whereas the Quraysh was quite oblivious to such considerations and totally ill-informed about the growing power and preparedness of the Prophet and his camp, the Prophet (peace be upon him) had the most up-to-date information about the whereabouts of the Quraysh and their commercial caravans. The superb network of informants and intelligence at the disposal of the Prophet (peace be upon him), can be inferred from the way he masterminded the expedition of Ibn Jaḥsh, in particular, its timing, its secrecy, the location to which it was directed, and the sense of danger and anticipation associated with it.
d. Fourthly, these expeditions helped to train Muslims for combat fitness and war-readiness that would be needed in the inevitable battles ahead. More importantly, the prestige of the Quraysh and their reputation for invulnerability, were thoroughly undermined, so that the Muslims no longer feared military confrontation with the Quraysh.
e. Finally, the Nakhlah expedition brought into the hands of Muhājirīn a considerable amount of money, food provisions and maybe some armaments, all of which they were in dire need, since they had left their wealth in