Ali and the Banner of Khaybar

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧TEN DAYS AT AL-NĀʿIM

The tribes of Khaybar locked themselves inside their separate fortresses, and therein lay their downfall. Fortresses built to repel raiding parties could not combine against an army of 1,700; each garrison of a few hundred faced the entire Muslim force alone. The Muslims besieged the largest stronghold, al-Nāʿim, for ten days. Siege warfare was utterly new to them: defenders shot through arrow slits and hurled heavy objects from the walls. Abu Bakr took charge for some days, then ʿUmar, without a breakthrough. Maḥmūd ibn Maslamah al-Anṣārī came too close to the wall and was crushed by a log the defenders dropped upon him, dying a shahīd, a deeply demoralizing loss.

❧THE BANNER PROMISE

That night after ʿIshāʾ, the Prophet ﷺ announced: tomorrow I shall hand the banner to a man whom Allah and His Messenger love, and Allah will grant victory at his hands. ʿUmar later said that never in his life did he wish for leadership as he did that night. After Fajr the Prophet ﷺ asked: where is ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib? He was in his tent with an eye infection so severe he could not open his eyes. The Prophet ﷺ had him brought, applied his blessed saliva to his eyes, and he was cured. Handing him the banner he said: go forth in the name of Allah (اِمْضِ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ) and do not turn back.

❧THE SHOUTED QUESTION

ʿAlī set off, then needed to ask something, but he had been told not to turn back. So he halted where he stood and shouted at the top of his lungs: O Messenger of Allah, upon what conditions shall I fight them? The answer: fight them until they testify lā ilāha illa Allāh, Muḥammadun rasūl Allāh (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ); if they do, their lives and property are protected. For by Allah, that Allah should guide even one person through you is better for you than a whole herd of camels. The shaykh pauses on this: after ten days of bitter siege, the instruction is daʿwah first, these campaigns were never about wealth or conquest for its own sake.

❧THE DUEL AND THE DOOR

Marḥab, the fortress chieftain and a famed warrior, came out and challenged the Muslims to single combat. ʿĀmir ibn al-Akwaʿ answered first and was cut down, dying a shahīd. Then ʿAlī himself, though a commander would not normally duel, took up the challenge and slew Marḥab: the first great victory of the campaign and a crushing blow to the defenders' morale. In the fierce fighting that followed, ʿAlī's shield was knocked from his grasp; he went to the fortress, unhinged its massive door, and wielded it as his shield for the rest of the battle. Abū Rāfiʿ narrated that afterwards seven men together tried to lift that door and could not, a karāmah given to ʿAlī. The shaykh adds: we are the true followers of ʿAlī, and we give him every credit that Allah and His Messenger gave him, he was of the greatest of the companions, may Allah be pleased with him and the household of the Prophet ﷺ.