Sa'd ibn Mu'adh Is Chosen to Judge Banu Qurayzah

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

When word came that Banū Qurayẓah were ready to surrender unconditionally, the Aws, their long-standing pre-Islamic allies, surrounded the Prophet ﷺ pleading for mercy, pointing to the precedent of Banū Naḍīr's expulsion granted at ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy's urging on behalf of his own Khazrajī allies. Dr. Qadhi notes the vast difference between Banū Naḍīr's offense and Banū Qurayẓah's outright wartime betrayal, but acknowledges the Aws's plea as an understandably human impulse to protect old friends.

Rather than rule directly, the Prophet ﷺ asked the Aws whether they would accept the judgment of one of their own; they agreed enthusiastically, and he named Saʿd ibn Muʿādh, their own chieftain, as the sole judge. Dr. Qadhi highlights this as a remarkable act of leadership: the Prophet ﷺ voluntarily setting aside his own prerogative to decide a matter that was, in principle, entirely his and Allah's to rule on, in order to preserve the Aws's trust and unity within the Ummah.

Saʿd, still confined for over three weeks to Rufaydah's field-hospital tent with his arrow wound bleeding continuously and unhealed, was carried by donkey to the site. Along the way, members of the Aws surrounded him, invoking old ties of friendship and suggesting he had only been chosen because they expected him to show mercy. Saʿd's response was that this, facing death, with nothing left to lose from public criticism, was precisely the moment to care only about sincerity to Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, a reply that immediately told those around him which direction his verdict would take.

On seeing Saʿd approach, the Prophet ﷺ instructed the Anṣār to rise in his honor, “Qūmū ilā sayyidikum” (قُومُوا إِلَى سَيِّدِكُمْ), the only recorded instance in the Sīrah of the Prophet ﷺ commanding others to stand for someone, notable since he otherwise strongly discouraged people standing for him personally. (Scholars including al-Nawawī reconcile this with the well-known ḥadīth warning against loving to have others stand for oneself: the prohibition applies to someone who makes it a habitual expectation, not to a one-off gesture of welcome for a returning or honored figure, of the kind the Prophet ﷺ himself extended to his own daughter Fāṭimah on her visits.)

Saʿd formally asked both his own people and the Prophet ﷺ, lowering his gaze out of respect as he addressed him, whether they would accept his verdict as final and beyond further dispute; both confirmed they would. Without hesitation, having had weeks to consider the matter, Saʿd delivered his verdict on the spot: the men of Banū Qurayẓah were to be executed, their property distributed as spoils, and their women and children taken captive. The Prophet ﷺ responded that Saʿd had ruled with the judgment of Allah from above the seven heavens (لَقَدْ حَكَمْتَ فِيهِمْ بِحُكْمِ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى مِنْ فَوْقِ سَبْعِ سَمَاوَاتٍ), a judgment the Prophet ﷺ himself had refrained from pronouncing directly out of consideration for the Aws, but which he affirmed without reservation once Saʿd, entirely independently, arrived at it himself.