Amir ibn al-Tufayl, Arbad, and the Thunderbolt

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The next tribe was not even a Muslim one: Banū ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿah, the tribe responsible for the massacre at the Well of Maʿūnah. One of the chief instigators of that massacre, ʿĀmir ibn al-Ṭufayl, came to Madinah among the delegates with no intention whatever of embracing Islam.

The date is uncertain, which is one of the standing problems with the delegations, there is no running calendar for them. It is usually placed in the eighth or ninth year, but the shaykh finds it hard to picture an assassination attempt after Makkah has fallen, when the cause is already hopeless, and leans to the seventh or early eighth year.

❧The signal that was never obeyed

Ibn Isḥāq and others record that ʿĀmir said to his henchman, Arbad ibn Qays: come, let us be rid of this man. I will occupy him with a string of questions, and when I give you the signal, draw your dagger and stab him. Most likely a poisoned blade, a dagger alone usually does not kill, and they knew poison well enough, as the Sīrah has already shown with the poisoned sheep at Khaybar, and as the killing of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib would later show. The books do not say so; it is the shaykh's own reading.

When they came in, ʿĀmir asked for a private audience. The Prophet ﷺ refused: not unless you embrace Islam. He asked again, and was refused again, and when he saw it would not happen he gave Arbad the signal, and Arbad did nothing. The conversation went on; he gave it a second time, and a third, and nothing.

❧Three demands

So he ended the audience with an ultimatum, and look at the arrogance of a man speaking this way to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. I give you three options. Either you take the people of the towns and I take the Bedouin, we divide the leadership between us; or you make me your successor; or, failing both, a thousand male camels and a thousand female camels against you, meaning an army out of my own tribe.

He ﷺ refused all three, and said that Allah would deal with him: اللَّهُمَّ اكْفِنِي عَامِرَ بْنَ الطُّفَيْلِ, O Allah, be sufficient for me against ʿĀmir ibn al-Ṭufayl, and then: and guide his people. Make duʿāʾ against the man, and duʿāʾ for his community. That is the prophetic method: this one man is evil, and it does not follow that his whole tribe is.

This duʿāʾ is one to memorise. اللَّهُمَّ اكْفِنِي شَرَّ فُلَانٍ, Allah is al-Kāfī, the Sufficient; when there is a particular enemy or a particular trouble, ask Him to be enough for you against him, and you may name him.

❧"I could see no one but you"

Outside, ʿĀmir turned on Arbad: what was wrong with you? I chose you out of everyone because you are the strongest warrior we have, and I signalled you to strike, and you did nothing. Arbad said: do not be angry, listen. It was my intention to do exactly as you wanted. But from the moment I entered upon him, I could see nothing but you. Every time you signalled, I saw only you. Did you want me to kill you? I had no choice; I could not see him.

This is not the first time Allah has directly shielded him ﷺ, وَجَعَلْنَا مِن بَيْنِ أَيْدِيهِمْ سَدًّا وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ سَدًّا فَأَغْشَيْنَاهُمْ فَهُمْ لَا يُبْصِرُونَ, as happened with Abū Jahl and others more than once in the Sīrah.

❧Both ends

The two of them came to evil ends, as is to be expected of men who attempt to assassinate the Prophet ﷺ. ʿĀmir, on the road home, stopped for the night at the house of a woman of ill repute, and in the middle of the night a disease broke out over his body and spread, a beast's disease, we may assume something on the skin, and fast; it took a single night. Realising he was dying, and unable to bear that ʿĀmir ibn al-Ṭufayl should die in such a place, he mounted his horse and rode off into the darkness and was never seen again. His body was never found.

As for Arbad, he reached his people first, and when they asked where he had been he said he had come from the man who claims to be a prophet, and then said something about Allah so foul that it will not be repeated here. The next day he rode out before his whole community, and lightning came down from the sky and incinerated him and his camel where they stood.

The books of tafsīr take him to be the reference of Sūrat al-Raʿd 11–13: وَإِذَا أَرَادَ اللَّهُ بِقَوْمٍ سُوءًا فَلَا مَرَدَّ لَهُ وَمَا لَهُم مِّن دُونِهِ مِن وَالٍ, when Allah wills harm for a people none can turn it back, and they have no protector besides Him; هُوَ الَّذِي يُرِيكُمُ الْبَرْقَ خَوْفًا وَطَمَعًا وَيُنشِئُ السَّحَابَ الثِّقَالَ, He it is who shows you the lightning, causing fear and hope, and raises the heavy clouds; وَيُسَبِّحُ الرَّعْدُ بِحَمْدِهِ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ مِنْ خِيفَتِهِ وَيُرْسِلُ الصَّوَاعِقَ فَيُصِيبُ بِهَا مَن يَشَاءُ وَهُمْ يُجَادِلُونَ فِي اللَّهِ وَهُوَ شَدِيدُ الْمِحَالِ, and the thunder glorifies His praise, and the angels from awe of Him; He sends the thunderbolts and strikes with them whom He wills, while they dispute about Allah, and He is severe in might. The man was disputing about Allah, and the thunderbolt found him.