Casualties, the Spoils of War, and Rayhanah

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Reports on the number of men executed vary considerably across the classical sources. Ibn Isḥāq, considered the most authoritative source, gives a range of six hundred to seven hundred, while noting that some transmitters exaggerated the figure to eight or nine hundred. A report in Musnad Aḥmad gives a figure closer to four hundred. Whatever the precise number, Dr. Qadhi notes it represented essentially the entire adult male population of the tribe.

The spoils recovered were substantial: roughly fifteen hundred swords and fifteen hundred shields, two thousand spears, three hundred suits of body armor, and large numbers of livestock, an immense material benefit for the young Muslim state, since weapons and armor were durable goods passed down and reused for generations. A quantity of alcohol was also found and destroyed entirely rather than distributed. It was around this campaign, according to one report, that the rule for dividing spoils involving cavalry was settled: a fighter who brought his own horse received three shares against one for an unmounted fighter, one share for himself and two covering the responsibility and expense of maintaining the animal, with one-fifth of the total set aside for the Islamic state per the rules of Sūrat al-Anfāl.

Among the captives given to the Prophet ﷺ as his own share was a woman named Rayḥānah. Invited to Islam, she initially declined and remained upon her prior religion for a time; because the Prophet ﷺ did not wish to retain a non-Muslim woman in this way, he gave her an extended period to decide her fate for herself. Understanding that he intended to release his claim over her rather than keep her indefinitely undecided, she chose to embrace Islam. As with several of his wives of similar background, the Prophet ﷺ then offered to free her with her freedom itself serving as her dowry (mahr). The classical accounts diverge on what followed: the majority and best-researched view holds that Rayḥānah preferred to remain in her existing status rather than become a wife, and the Prophet ﷺ respected her preference, while a minority report holds that she accepted the offer of marriage, a question Dr. Qadhi notes belongs to the broader, still disputed, discussion of the Prophet's ﷺ marriages he plans to address later in the Sīrah.