The Massacre at Ar-Raji'

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧THE TRAP

After the killing of their chieftain Khālid ibn Sufyān, the tribe of Hudhayl resorted to a deliberate deception to lure Muslims to their deaths. They paid two allied tribes, ʿUḍal and al-Qārah, to send delegations to Madinah pretending to accept Islam, then beg the Prophet (ﷺ) to send back Qurʾān and prayer teachers, knowing the Companions would eagerly volunteer for such a mission. Between seven and ten Companions responded, led by ʿĀṣim ibn Thābit.

When the group reached the well of ar-Rajīʿ, roughly a hundred armed warriors ambushed them. Realizing the conversion had been a fabrication, the Companions took refuge on a nearby hilltop and fought back with bows and arrows, but the odds were overwhelming.

❧ʿĀṢIM'S STAND AND THE VANISHED BODY

ʿĀṣim carried an additional grievance from his attackers: he had killed the husband of a woman named Sulāfah bint Saʿd at Uḥud, and she had vowed never to rest until she drank wine from his skull, offering a hundred camels to whoever brought it to her. Aware of this, ʿĀṣim made duʿāʾ that Allah protect his body after death as he had protected Allah's religion in life, and refused to surrender. He fought until his arrows were spent, then his spear until it broke, then his sword until it dulled, and was eventually overwhelmed and killed.

When the attackers moved to retrieve his body, Sulāfah's bounty being the obvious prize, a swarm of wasps descended and drove them off. They decided to wait until night, when the wasps would disperse. But at dusk, without any prior rain and with no natural watercourse nearby, a sudden flash flood swept in, reached the hilltop where his body lay, and carried it away entirely. To this day his burial place is unknown, a karāmah (a minor miracle granted to the righteous, distinct from a Prophet's muʿjizah) that permanently denied Sulāfah her vow.

❧THE LAST THREE

The attackers killed the Companions one by one until only three remained: Khubayb ibn ʿAdī, Zayd ibn al-Dathinnah, and ʿAbdullāh ibn Ṭāriq. Offered a promise of safety if they surrendered, a promise the attackers had no intention of honoring, since a living prisoner could be ransomed while a dead body could not, the three came down from the hill. As soon as they were bound like captured animals, ʿAbdullāh ibn Ṭāriq recognized the treachery for what it was and refused to walk with them any further. He was killed on the spot rather than accept the false surrender.

Khubayb and Zayd were taken onward as captives, to be sold and executed in Mecca.