Nu'aym ibn Mas'ud

Nuʿaym ibn Masʿūd al-Ghaṭafānī was a respected but second-tier figure of the tribe of Ghaṭafān, not among its top chieftains but well-connected across several communities. His first documented interaction with the Muslims came in 4 AH: still a polytheist at the time and a business associate of Abū Sufyān, he was paid a substantial bribe to travel to Madinah and falsely warn the Prophet ﷺ that Quraysh had assembled an overwhelming force for the agreed second meeting at Badr (Badr al-Mawʿid), a lie meant to frighten the Muslims into not showing up, so the blame for abandoning the agreement would fall on them rather than on Quraysh, who in fact had no intention of coming. The Prophet ﷺ declared he would go even if alone, and the Muslims marched to Badr as agreed, while Quraysh never appeared. Around the same period, Nuʿaym also negotiated a minor boundary agreement with the Prophet ﷺ on behalf of his sub-tribe.

Dr. Yasir Qadhi's own assessment, offered explicitly as personal theory rather than established history, is that these two direct encounters with the Prophet ﷺ, during which Ghaṭafān remained neutral and Nuʿaym was uniquely positioned among his tribe to witness the Prophet's ﷺ character firsthand, planted the seed of his eventual conversion, made secretly sometime before the Battle of the Trench (5 AH).

During the siege of the Trench, Nuʿaym slipped away from the Ghaṭafān camp at night and declared his Islam to the Prophet ﷺ, offering himself for any task. Told that a single additional fighter would add little to the Muslims' defense, he was instructed instead to use whatever means he could devise to weaken the coalition against them, the Prophet ﷺ granting him the famous permission that "war is deceit" (الْحَرْبُ خُدْعَةٌ, al-ḥarbu khidʿah). Drawing on his personal trust with all three parties, Banū Qurayẓah, Quraysh through Abū Sufyān, and his own tribe of Ghaṭafān, Nuʿaym set in motion a plan to sow mutual distrust among the Confederate coalition by convincing each side, separately and secretly, to demand hostages from the others before committing further to the fight, the opening move in unraveling the siege from within.

Nuʿaym remained close to the Prophet ﷺ afterward; he is recorded as the standard-bearer for the tribe of Ghaṭafān during the Conquest of Makkah, a position of considerable honor.