The Departure for Mu'tah

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧A RAPIDLY GROWING COMMUNITY

Around 3,000 companions volunteered for the expedition, ten times the number at Badr just six years earlier, and roughly double the number that had gone on ʿUmrat al-Qaḍāʾ barely a year before, a clear sign of how quickly Medina was growing into the center of the emerging Muslim civilization. A hadith in al-Tirmidhī, narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās, dates the departure to a Friday: Ibn ʿAbbās debated whether to leave with the army that morning or stay to pray Jumuʿah with the Prophet ﷺ first and catch up afterward. He chose the prayer, and the Prophet ﷺ told him that even giving away all the wealth in the world in charity could not make up for the reward he had lost by not leaving with the others at the start.

❧THREE COMMANDERS, FOR THE ONLY TIME

Recognizing the gravity of this expedition, the Prophet ﷺ did something he never repeated: he named three commanders in succession. Zayd ibn Ḥārithah would lead; if Zayd fell, Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib; if Jaʿfar fell, ʿAbdullāh ibn Rawāḥah, and one report adds that if Ibn Rawāḥah also fell, the Muslims were to choose a leader among themselves on the spot. Zayd's position reflects his unmatched standing, the only companion named directly in the Qur'an, and, according to ʿĀʾishah, a man who would have been chosen over anyone else as leader had he outlived the Prophet ﷺ. Jaʿfar, feeling the sting of being placed second as the Prophet's ﷺ own cousin, was gently reassured that Allah might have something better in store for him, a remark that proved true in the martyrdom to come.

❧THE HILL OF FAREWELL

The Prophet ﷺ personally handed Zayd the banner and walked the army out to Thaniyyat al-Wadāʿ, the customary hill outside Medina where loved ones bid travelers farewell, making duʿāʾ for them before they departed. There, Ibn Rawāḥah wept, not from love of this world, he explained, but from the Qur'anic image of every soul passing over the Fire, wondering how he would fare at that crossing having just crossed this one. When a companion called out a prayer for his safe return, Ibn Rawāḥah answered in verse: that for himself he asked only Allah's forgiveness and a mighty, bloodying blow in battle, so that those who later passed his grave would say he had been rightly guided to fight.

❧A GENTLE REBUKE ON THE ROAD

Further along, the young Zayd ibn Arqam, raised in Ibn Rawāḥah's household, wept at hearing more of his verses foretelling death. Ibn Rawāḥah gently struck him with his camel-stick and teased him: what would it matter to him if Allah blessed him with martyrdom, since the boy would only get more room on the camel for the ride home. It was, in the end, exactly what happened.