The Siege of Banu Nadir

He came to Banu Nadir with a small company to ask their share of a blood-price, exactly as the covenant provided. They agreed readily, seated him against the wall of a house, and went aside to arrange for a millstone to be dropped on him from the roof.

He rose and left without explanation and walked back to the city. The order followed: leave within ten days.

Their strongholds stood in the Awali among the best palm land around Madinah, which is what made the whole affair so consequential — and what made them think they could refuse.

ʿAbdullah ibn Ubayy sent word that he would stand with them with two thousand men, and on the strength of it they refused to leave. No one came.

The quarter was besieged for six nights. Some of the palms were cut — a hard measure, argued over at the time, and settled by revelation.

They asked for terms and were allowed to go with what their camels could carry, short of arms.

They left in a column of six hundred camels, with drums and finery, past the people of the city — a display meant to look like anything but a defeat. Most went to Khaybar; some as far as Syria.

And this is why the siege matters more than its six nights suggest. At Khaybar their chiefs — Huyayy ibn Akhtab and the house of Abi al-Huqayq — went on to Mecca and to Ghatafan and put together the ten thousand who came to the Trench a year later.

The road out of Madinah and the road back to it were the same road. Two years after that, the army went up it to Khaybar.