The Expedition to Tabuk

Word came that Byzantium was massing on the northern frontier. He called the army out openly and named the destination, which he almost never did — because the distance and the season meant nobody should come unprepared.

It was the hottest part of the year. The dates were ready to pick and would be lost. The road was over seven hundred kilometres of desert, past al-Hijr, the ruins of Thamud, where the army was told to pass quickly and not to drink from the wells.

ʿUthman ﵁ equipped roughly a third of the army out of his own property. Abu Bakr ﵁ brought everything he owned. Men who had nothing to ride wept when they were turned back for want of a mount, and the Qurʾan named them. Thirty thousand marched — the largest force he ever led.

The army reached Tabuk and found nobody there. Whatever had been gathering on the frontier had not come south, and no battle was offered.

He stayed some twenty nights and used them. Yuhannah ibn Ruʾbah of Ayla came in person, agreed terms and paid the jizyah — the port at the head of the gulf passed into the new order without a fight, and Jarbaʾ and Adhruh followed. Khalid ﵁ was sent east to Dumat al-Jandal, six hundred kilometres across the Nafud, and came back with Ukaydir its ruler.

A campaign with no battle in it, which moved the frontier several hundred kilometres and settled who the tribes of the north answered to.

On the road back, the mosque built at Dhu Awan to divide the community was pulled down.

In Madinah those who had stayed behind without cause came with excuses and were left to God. Three who told the plain truth instead — Kaʿb ibn Malik ﵁, Murarah ibn al-Rabiʿ ﵁ and Hilal ibn Umayyah ﵁ — were cut off for fifty nights. Nobody spoke to them. Kaʿb said the earth he had known all his life became strange to him, and that when a Ghassanid king wrote offering him a place, he burned the letter.

Then the revelation came that their repentance was accepted: the passage that says the earth, for all its breadth, was straitened for them. This was the last campaign the Prophet ﷺ led.