The Siege of Banu Qaynuqaʿ

The covenant of Madinah bound every community in the city to a common defence and to not aiding an enemy against it. Banu Qaynuqaʿ were the first to step outside it.

They were smiths and armourers and held the busiest market in the city — the strongest of the three tribes in fighting men: some seven hundred, of whom four hundred bore arms. After Badr their tone changed, and the Prophet ﷺ warned them plainly not to invite on themselves what had come on Quraysh.

The break came in the market itself. A Muslim woman was humiliated there, a man who came to her aid was killed, and the killing was answered.

They withdrew into their strongholds and the quarter was invested. This is a siege inside a city — no march, no field, just a quarter sealed off from the streets around it.

No one came to help them. The covenant they had relied on cut both ways, and the other communities stayed out of it. After fifteen nights they came down on the Prophet’s ﷺ judgement.

ʿAbdullah ibn Ubayy, who held their alliance from before Islam, pressed hard on their behalf. They were spared and expelled, and went north toward Adhriʿat in Syria.