The Tightening Noose

The bags of dried porridge tumble from the backs of galloping camels, scattering across the desert floor like strange offerings to the sand. Abu Sufyan’s raiders are fleeing again — not from a great army, but from the mere rumor that the Muslims are coming. It is late in the second year of the Hijrah, and the man who once commanded the greatest caravan in Arabia cannot even complete a revenge raid on a date garden without abandoning his provisions in a panicked retreat. The bags of sawiq — barley mixed with milk, butter, and honey, dried into portable rations — lie strewn across the trail like a confession of impotence. The Muslims will name this encounter after those abandoned rations: the Battle of Porridge.

It is an absurd name for a skirmish, almost comic. But beneath the comedy lies a deadly serious reality. In the months between Badr and Uhud — roughly from Ramadan of the second year to Shawwal of the third — the fledgling Muslim state in Madinah is tightening its grip on the Arabian Peninsula’s economic arteries, and the Quraysh are slowly suffocating.

The Aftershocks of Badr

The victory at Badr had changed everything. The greatest warriors of the Quraysh lay dead or captured. The trade routes that had sustained Makkah’s prosperity for generations now felt like exposed veins, vulnerable to a community that had proven it would fight. And fight effectively.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) understood that Badr was not an endpoint but a beginning. The Muslim community now had to consolidate its gains, project strength to wavering tribes, and prevent the Quraysh from regrouping. What followed was a series of expeditions — some led by the Prophet himself (ghazawat), others dispatched under the command of trusted Companions (saraya) — that collectively reshaped the political landscape of the Hijaz.

The first of these was the expedition of Qarqaratul Kudr, launched shortly after Badr. When the Prophet arrived at the location with a Muslim force, the enemy had already fled. There was no engagement, no clash of swords. But the Prophet camped there for three days, as was his established practice, and explained to his Companions the divine assistance behind the enemy’s flight.

“I have been helped by Allah — my enemies are terrified of me even at a month’s journey away.”

This hadith, recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, articulated a new reality: the psychological balance of power in Arabia had shifted. The Muslims no longer needed to win every engagement. Their reputation, forged at Badr, preceded them like a desert wind.

Scholarly Note

The expedition of Qarqaratul Kudr is mentioned briefly in the major Seerah sources, including Ibn Hisham and al-Waqidi. The precise dating is uncertain, though it is generally placed within weeks of the return from Badr. The hadith about divine assistance through ru’b (awe/terror) is narrated in multiple authentic collections with slight variations in wording.

The Battle of Sawiq: A Vow Fulfilled in Disgrace

Abu Sufyan ibn Harb was not a man who accepted humiliation easily. After Badr, he had made a vow — a nadr to Allah — that he would not bathe, not even from the state of ritual impurity, until he had avenged the Quraysh dead. The fact that ritual bathing after janabah was part of their inherited Abrahamic customs makes this vow all the more striking: Abu Sufyan was willing to violate his own religious norms to sustain his rage.

Months passed. The unwashed chieftain finally gathered roughly two hundred men and marched toward Madinah. But he did not come alone, nor did he come unsupported. The Banu Nadir — one of the three major Jewish tribes of Madinah, bound by the Constitution of Madinah to mutual defense with the Muslims — provided Abu Sufyan’s force with food, water, supplies, and shelter. This was a direct and unambiguous violation of the treaty, which stipulated that the Jewish tribes would not aid the Quraysh against the Muslims and would act as one body against external aggression.

The treachery would not be forgotten.

Abu Sufyan, with a smaller detachment of perhaps twenty men, slipped into the outskirts of Madinah under cover of darkness. He struck one of the date gardens, killing two men of the Ansar, terrorizing women and children, and setting the garden ablaze. It was a hit-and-run operation — not a battle but an act of arson and murder designed to satisfy a vow.

When the alarm spread through Madinah and a Muslim force mobilized, Abu Sufyan’s men did what they had done at Qarqaratul Kudr: they ran. In their desperation to lighten their camels and outpace the pursuing Muslims, they slashed the ropes binding their provisions. Bags of sawiq cascaded onto the desert floor. The Muslims collected the abandoned porridge but could not catch Abu Sufyan himself.

He returned to Makkah having technically fulfilled his oath — two Ansari men were dead, and he could finally take a bath. But the “Battle of Porridge” was a strategic embarrassment. The leader of the Quraysh had managed nothing more than a garden raid, and even that had ended in a panicked retreat.

The Banu Nadir's Treaty Violations: A Pattern Emerges

The Banu Nadir’s assistance to Abu Sufyan during the Sawiq expedition was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of treaty violations that would eventually lead to their expulsion from Madinah. The Constitution of Madinah — the foundational political document of the Muslim state — had established clear mutual obligations between the Muslim community and the Jewish tribes. Among the most critical provisions was the requirement that no party would aid external enemies against any other party to the agreement.

The Banu Nadir’s hosting and supplying of Abu Sufyan’s raiding party was a flagrant breach. It would be compounded by further acts of betrayal: the secret alliance between Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf and Abu Sufyan in Makkah, and — according to some scholars — a later assassination attempt against the Prophet involving poisoned food. Each violation escalated the crisis of trust between the Muslim state and the Banu Nadir, ultimately leading to the siege and expulsion of the tribe after the Battle of Uhud. The seeds of that confrontation were being sown in these seemingly minor incidents between Badr and Uhud.

The Sariyyah of Qarada: Strangling the Lifeline

If the Battle of Sawiq revealed the Quraysh’s military impotence, the Sariyyah of Qarada exposed their economic desperation.

Every year, the Quraysh’s survival depended on two great trading caravans — the winter journey to Yemen and the summer journey to Syria. The Quran itself immortalizes this dependence: “For the accustomed security of the Quraysh — their accustomed security in the caravan of winter and summer” (Quraysh, 106:1-2). Without these caravans, Makkah — a barren valley with no agriculture, no industry, no natural resources beyond the sacred precinct — would wither and die.

After Badr, the standard northern route to Syria was no longer safe. Safwan ibn Umayyah, now placed in charge of the annual caravan (the same Safwan whose father Umayyah ibn Khalaf had perished at Badr), convened the Qurayshi leadership to discuss alternatives.

“Muhammad and his companions have blocked our passages,” Safwan told the assembled elders. “If we take the sea route close to the ocean, most of them have already given their allegiance to Muhammad and they are upon his religion.”

This single sentence, preserved almost casually in the Seerah sources, reveals something remarkable: Islam was spreading far beyond the battlefield. The coastal communities between Makkah and Madinah — people who had never been attacked, never been coerced — were converting through preaching, trade, and interaction with Muslims. The da’wah was working. Safwan’s complaint was not about military defeat but about a cultural and spiritual transformation that was reshaping the demographics of western Arabia.

The western coastal route was compromised. The standard northern route was suicidal. An elder named al-Aswad ibn Abd al-Muttalib proposed a radical alternative: take the caravan far to the east, loop northeast through the Iraqi passage, and then double back toward Syria — a vast semicircle that would add weeks to the journey but, they hoped, would evade Muslim detection entirely.

It was a measure of their desperation. They had to hire a special guide, someone who knew this obscure route that no Qurayshi caravan had ever traveled. They loaded their camels with goods and silver, placed Safwan ibn Umayyah at the head, and set out on what was supposed to be the most secret trading expedition in Qurayshi history.

The plan lasted about as long as it took one of the conspirators to get drunk.

Among the small circle of Qurayshi elites who knew the route was a man who happened to be the drinking companion of Salit ibn Nu’man — a Muslim who had remained in Makkah, his conversion still secret. Wine had not yet been prohibited in Islam, and Salit was sharing a drink with his old friend when the man, loosened by alcohol, began to boast. The Quraysh had a plan, he said, that no one could outsmart. They would humiliate the Muslims. They would take this route and that route to reach Syria.

Salit listened. And then he sent an urgent message to Madinah.

The Prophet dispatched Zayd ibn Harithah (may Allah be pleased with him) to intercept the caravan. The result was everything that Badr was supposed to have been: a complete, bloodless seizure of the entire Qurayshi caravan — camels, leather, goods, and over fifty thousand dirhams in silver. Not a single drop of blood was shed. Lock, stock, and barrel, the wealth of the Quraysh passed into Muslim hands.

The theological significance was not lost on the believers. At Badr, Allah had promised them one of two prizes — the caravan or the army:

“And remember when Allah promised you one of the two groups — that it would be yours.” (Al-Anfal, 8:7)

They had received the army at Badr, the prize they had not wanted. Now, in the Sariyyah of Qarada, Allah gave them the caravan — the prize they had originally sought — with zero casualties, as if to demonstrate that divine generosity operates on its own timeline.

Scholarly Note

The Sariyyah of Qarada is dated by most scholars to approximately Rabi’ al-Awwal of the third year of Hijrah, a few months before the Battle of Uhud. The figure of fifty thousand dirhams comes primarily from al-Waqidi’s account. Ibn Ishaq mentions the expedition but with fewer financial details. The story of Salit ibn Nu’man and his drinking companion is narrated in multiple Seerah sources, though the precise chain of transmission varies. The identification of Salit as a secret Muslim in Makkah connects to the broader phenomenon of clandestine believers who remained in the city after the Hijrah.

The economic consequences were devastating for the Quraysh. They could not use the northern route. They could not use the western coastal route. And now even the desperate eastern detour had been compromised. Their oxygen supply — the lifeblood of rihlat al-shita’ wal-sayf — was being systematically cut off. This strangulation would drive them to the desperate gamble that became the Battle of Uhud.

The Shadow of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf

While the Quraysh bled economically, a different kind of threat was metastasizing within Madinah itself. His name was Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf, and he was perhaps the most dangerous man in the city — not because of his military prowess, but because of his pen, his wealth, and his willingness to conspire with every enemy the Muslims had.

Ka’b was a man of two worlds. His father was a pure Arab of the Banu Nabhan who had fled his own tribe after committing murder and found refuge among the Banu Nadir of Yathrib. There he married a Jewish woman of noble lineage, and from this union Ka’b was born — Arab by blood, Jewish by religion and upbringing, and by temperament a man who combined the tribal pride of the Arabs with the scriptural authority of the People of the Book.

He was rich. He lived in his own fortress. He was strikingly handsome — the mixing of two lineages, as was often noted, had produced remarkable physical beauty. And he was a poet, wielding the Arabic language with the precision of a weapon. In seventh-century Arabia, a skilled poet was not merely an entertainer; he was a propagandist, a diplomat, and a weapon of mass persuasion rolled into one.

Ka’b’s hostility to Islam manifested early. When the qiblah was changed from Jerusalem to Makkah — one of the earliest legislative changes after the Hijrah — it was Ka’b who mocked the Muslims publicly. His words were so provocative that the Quran itself quoted and refuted them: “The foolish among the people will say, ‘What has turned them away from their qiblah which they used to face?’” (Al-Baqarah, 2:142).

When the obligation of zakah was revealed, Ka’b went to his former friends among the Ansar — men he had known before their conversion — and urged them not to pay. “Do not give your money away,” he counseled. “You will become poor. Do not be hasty in parting with your wealth, for you do not know what will happen to this man.” Allah responded in Surah al-Nisa: “Those who are stingy and command people to be stingy, and conceal what Allah has given them of His bounty” (Al-Nisa, 4:37).

But Ka’b’s provocations escalated far beyond mockery and financial sabotage. When news of Badr reached Madinah and the names of the Qurayshi dead were announced, Ka’b declared bitterly: “If Muhammad has truly killed all of these men, then it is better to be inside the earth than outside of it.” He had, in a grim irony, pronounced his own sentence.

What followed was an act of outright treason. Ka’b traveled secretly to Makkah with a small entourage from the Banu Nadir and formed a clandestine military alliance with Abu Sufyan against the Prophet. The details of this pact are lost to history — Ka’b was killed before they could be fully uncovered — but its nature was unmistakable: coordination for a joint attack on the Muslim community.

During this meeting, Abu Sufyan asked Ka’b a remarkable question — one that revealed the deep insecurity beneath Qurayshi paganism. “I ask you, swearing by Allah,” Abu Sufyan said, “which of the two religions is closer to Allah — our religion, or the religion of Muhammad?”

Abu Sufyan was asking a monotheist — a man of scripture, a Jew who claimed descent from Abraham’s covenant — to adjudicate between Arabian polytheism and Muhammad’s monotheism. And Ka’b, driven by hatred beyond all theological integrity, answered: “You are more rightly guided than them.”

The Quran recorded this betrayal with devastating precision:

“Have you not seen those who were given a portion of the Scripture? They believe in superstition and false objects of worship and say about the disbelievers, ‘These are better guided than the believers as to the way.’” (Al-Nisa, 4:51)

Ka’b returned to Madinah and committed his final provocation: he began composing erotic poetry about Muslim women, naming them specifically, describing them in vivid and degrading terms. In a culture where a woman’s honor was sacrosanct and a poet’s words carried the force of public record, this was not artistic expression — it was a calculated assault on the dignity of the entire Muslim community.

The Night of the Fourteenth

The Prophet stood before his Companions and asked a simple question: “Who will take care of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf? For he has harmed Allah and His Messenger.”

Muhammad ibn Maslamah (may Allah be pleased with him) rose and volunteered. The choice was strategic as much as it was personal. Muhammad ibn Maslamah was of the Aws — the Ansari tribe that had been allied with the Banu Nadir in the days of Jahiliyyah. If the operation were carried out by the Khazraj, it could reignite the old tribal feuds. But an Awsi volunteer neutralized that danger.

What followed, however, was not the swift action of a confident warrior. For three days, Muhammad ibn Maslamah stopped eating and drinking, consumed by anxiety. He had made a promise to the Prophet and now feared he could not fulfill it. Ka’b was rich, guarded, lived in a fortress, and was always armed. How could a small group of men reach him?

When the Prophet visited him, Muhammad ibn Maslamah confessed his anguish. The Prophet’s response was characteristically measured: “All you need to do is try. Success is with Allah.” And then Muhammad ibn Maslamah made a request that revealed the nature of the plan: “Allow me to say things I do not mean.” The Prophet replied simply: “Say as you like.”

The plan was built on an elaborate deception. Muhammad ibn Maslamah visited Ka’b during normal hours and, in a private conversation, expressed disillusionment with Islam. “This man has come and caused us nothing but hardship,” he complained. “The Arabs are against us, he asks for our money…” Ka’b was elated. Here, he believed, was proof that the Muslims were fracturing from within. “This is just the beginning,” Ka’b gloated. “He will put you through much more.”

The conversation turned to money. Muhammad ibn Maslamah asked for a loan and was asked for collateral. Ka’b suggested leaving his wife as guarantee. Muhammad ibn Maslamah deflected with flattery: “You are the most handsome of men — how could I trust a woman in your presence?” Ka’b suggested his sons. Muhammad ibn Maslamah declined — the dishonor would follow them forever. Then came the critical proposal: “What if I bring you my weapons as collateral?”

Ka’b agreed. And in that agreement, he sealed his fate. Muhammad ibn Maslamah and his companions — including Abu Na’ilah, who was Ka’b’s own foster brother, and Silkan ibn Salam — would arrive armed to the teeth, and no suspicion would be raised.

The night chosen was the fourteenth of Rabi’ al-Awwal in the third year of Hijrah. A full moon hung in a cloudless sky. The Prophet walked with the group to Baqi’ al-Gharqad, the cemetery on the edge of Madinah, and blessed them: “May Allah help you in your mission.”

They reached Ka’b’s fortress and called up to him. He was lying with his new wife, who clutched at him and begged him not to go. “You are a man at war,” she warned. “I am worried for you.” It was a remarkable statement — she understood, even if Ka’b did not, that his conspiracies had made him a combatant. But Ka’b dismissed her fears. “Abu Na’ilah is my foster brother. Muhammad ibn Maslamah I know from before Islam.” He pulled himself free and descended.

In the moonlight, they walked and talked. Abu Na’ilah remarked on the sweet scent of Ka’b’s perfume — a gift from his bride. “Let me smell it,” he said, drawing closer. Ka’b lowered his head. Abu Na’ilah gripped him. The others struck. Ka’b’s heavy armor made the task difficult, and al-Harith ibn Aws was severely wounded by a misdirected blow in the struggle. They returned to Madinah with al-Harith bleeding badly. The Prophet applied his saliva to the wound, and it healed.

Scholarly Note

The assassination of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari (Book of Military Expeditions, chapter on the killing of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf) and in the major Seerah works of Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, and al-Waqidi. There is scholarly disagreement on the precise timing. Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, and al-Waqidi place the event between Badr and Uhud, while Muqatil ibn Sulayman, al-Baghawi, and the later scholar al-Salihi (author of Subul al-Huda wal-Rashad, a twelve-volume Seerah) place it after Uhud and before the siege of Banu Nadir — connecting it directly to an alleged assassination attempt against the Prophet involving poisoned food. If the latter chronology is correct, Ka’b was killed the very night before the Muslim march on Banu Nadir. The earlier dating, supported by the more authoritative Seerah sources, is generally preferred by modern scholars, though the alternative should be noted.

A Mother of the Poor

Amid these expeditions and political crises, a quieter event unfolded in the Prophet’s household — one that reveals the tender, human dimensions of life in Madinah during these turbulent months.

In the third year of Hijrah, the Prophet married Zaynab bint Khuzaymah (may Allah be pleased with her), a woman of the Banu Hilal tribe of Najd. She was already known by a remarkable epithet: Umm al-Masakin — the Mother of the Poor — earned through her extraordinary generosity to the destitute and vulnerable. In a society where charitable giving was not yet a widespread cultural norm, Zaynab’s compassion had become legendary even before her marriage to the Prophet.

Her time as a wife of the Prophet was heartbreakingly brief. She passed away only two or three months after the marriage, making hers the shortest union in the Prophet’s household. The sources preserve little about her daily life during this period, but her title alone — bestowed by her community before she ever entered the Prophet’s home — speaks to a character of profound mercy.

The Ethics of Wartime: A Question That Endures

The killing of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf is one of the most debated episodes in the Seerah, and intellectual honesty demands that the difficulty be acknowledged rather than evaded.

The charge is straightforward: this was a targeted assassination carried out through deception against a man who was never formally tried or convicted. In the framework of modern international law, it would be classified as an extrajudicial killing. Some Muslim writers, uncomfortable with this reality, have attempted to deny or minimize the incident — an approach that is both historically untenable (the event is narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari and virtually every Seerah source) and intellectually dishonest.

The justifications, however, are substantial and rooted in the political realities of the time. Ka’b had formed a secret military alliance with Abu Sufyan — an act of treason against the political community to which the Banu Nadir were bound by treaty. He had actively worked to undermine the Muslim state through financial sabotage, propaganda, and incitement. He had composed poetry that, in the cultural context of seventh-century Arabia, constituted a direct assault on the honor of Muslim families. And the Prophet, as the head of state, possessed the executive authority to order such an action — an authority he had never exercised in Makkah, where he held no political power.

Ka’b’s own wife understood the situation with a clarity that her husband lacked. Her warning — “You are a man at war” — was not metaphorical. In the political landscape of seventh-century Arabia, Ka’b’s actions had made him a belligerent, and the customs of the time recognized the consequences of that status.

Understanding Political Violence in the Early Muslim State

The killing of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf must be understood within the political framework of its time rather than retroactively judged by modern legal standards. Several points are essential:

The Prophet as Head of State: In Madinah, the Prophet functioned simultaneously as religious leader, political ruler, and chief judge. His decree carried the force of law. The authorization of Ka’b’s killing was an executive action by the legitimate authority of the state — not a vigilante operation.

The Absence of Formal Legal Infrastructure: In the third year of Hijrah, the Muslim state was still in its formative stages. There was no established court system, no formal prosecution process for cases of high treason. The political and legal institutions that would later characterize Islamic governance were still being built. Judging this period by the standards of a mature legal system is anachronistic.

Treaty Violation as Casus Belli: Ka’b’s actions — particularly his secret alliance with Abu Sufyan — constituted a violation of the Constitution of Madinah. In the tribal framework of Arabia, treaty violation was understood as an act of war, and the consequences were recognized by all parties, including Ka’b’s own household.

The Deterrent Effect: Ibn Ishaq records that after Ka’b’s death, the Jewish tribes of Madinah were seized with fear, and none of them felt safe to continue their provocations for a period. The action served its intended purpose of restoring the security of the Muslim community.

Not a Religious Persecution: It is critical to note that Ka’b was not killed for rejecting Islam or for being Jewish. He was killed for specific political and military actions — treason, conspiracy with an enemy state, and incitement. The many Jews of Madinah who honored their treaty obligations continued to live in peace.

The Noose Tightens

Taken together, the expeditions between Badr and Uhud paint a picture of a young state rapidly consolidating its power. The Quraysh could not raid Madinah without fleeing in panic. They could not send their caravans by any route without interception. Their secret plans were exposed by providence — a drunken boast here, a divine revelation there. Islam was spreading along the coastal routes through peaceful conversion. And within Madinah, those who conspired against the Muslim community were being held to account.

But the very success of this consolidation was driving the Quraysh toward a desperate reckoning. With their trade routes strangled and their prestige in tatters, they had no choice but to raise the largest army they could muster and march on Madinah in force. The Battle of Uhud — a confrontation that would test the Muslim community’s faith as severely as Badr had vindicated it — was now inevitable.

The bags of sawiq scattered in the desert were a prophecy written in barley and honey: the old order was crumbling, and the Quraysh knew it. The only question was whether they could destroy the new one before it became unassailable. In the shadow of Mount Uhud, they would make their most ferocious attempt.