The Ghazwah of Dhat al-Salasil
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:
A few weeks after Muʾtah, in the winter of the 8th year of the Hijrah, the Prophet ﷺ sent out one of the small expeditions that fill the months before the Conquest of Makkah. For beginners of the Sīrah the value of these minor ghazawāt and sarāyā is not the politics of which tribe was raided, but the small incidents inside them, the moral, theological, and fiqh lessons we can carry away. The most significant of these minor battles is the Ghazwah of Dhāt al-Salāsil (غَزْوَة ذَات السَّلَاسِل), named after a pond called Salāsil beside which the army camped. It should not be confused with the far more famous Battle of Dhāt al-Salāsil fought in the reign of ʿUmar against the Sassanids, that one was named for the prisoners bound in chains. Same name, two completely different reasons. The target here was Quḍāʿah, a large northern tribe, northeast of Medina, that had aided the Ghassanids at Muʾtah; this was the response to that aid.
❧How Beautiful Is Pure Wealth
The Prophet ﷺ summoned ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, told him to put on his garments and armour, and, while making wuḍūʾ, looked him up and down (صَعَّدَ النَّظَرَ), assessing him. Then he said: "I wish to appoint you a commander over an army. Allāh will keep you safe and grant you much ghanīmah, and I am hopeful you will gain much wealth." ʿAmr, a brand-new Muslim of barely two or three months, and of the nobility of Quraysh, son of al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil, felt the sting of it: "O Messenger of Allāh, I did not accept Islām for wealth. I accepted it to be a Muslim and to be with you." So the Prophet ﷺ corrected his misunderstanding with a beautiful phrase: نِعْمَ الْمَالُ الصَّالِحُ لِلرَّجُلِ الصَّالِحِ, "How excellent is pure wealth in the hand of a righteous man." There is nothing wrong with wanting or having money, on two conditions: that the wealth be pure (al-māl aṣ-ṣāliḥ) and the man be righteous (ar-rajul aṣ-ṣāliḥ). Wealth is among the greatest tests of this ummah, فِتْنَةُ أُمَّتِي الْمَالُ, but the believer does not run from the test; he asks to pass it: اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَسْأَلُكَ رِزْقًا وَاسِعًا حَلَالًا طَيِّبًا. And this is the same ʿAmr whose sincerity the Qurʾān itself vindicates, for those who gave and fought before the Conquest stand higher than those who came after: لَا يَسْتَوِي مِنْكُمْ مَنْ أَنْفَقَ مِنْ قَبْلِ الْفَتْحِ وَقَاتَلَ أُولَئِكَ أَعْظَمُ دَرَجَةً مِنَ الَّذِينَ أَنْفَقُوا مِنْ بَعْدُ وَقَاتَلُوا (57:10). It was ʿAmr, too, who once asked the Prophet ﷺ who was most beloved to him and heard "ʿĀʾishah," then "her father," and kept naming others until ʿAmr stopped asking, fearing his own name would never come, such was the Prophet's ﷺ gift for making each man feel the most loved.
❧The March Without Fires
ʿAmr set out with 300 men. He was a new Muslim but no new soldier, raised as the son of a chieftain, trained like his close friend Khālid ibn al-Walīd, both of them still in their late twenties. It was the depth of winter, so he marched only by night and forbade any fire the entire way. When the men grumbled at the cold he warned them: "If any of you lights a fire, I will throw him into it." When they later complained of this to the Prophet ﷺ, ʿAmr explained his reasoning: their numbers were tiny against a massive tribe, and he did not want Quḍāʿah to see how few they were, so he hid the army in darkness. Reaching the outskirts, he judged 300 too few to attack, pulled back, and sent word to Medina asking for reinforcement.
❧Two Commanders, One Army
The Prophet ﷺ sent 200 more, bringing the force to 500, and among them were Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, under the command of Abū ʿUbaydah ʿĀmir ibn al-Jarrāḥ, one of the ten promised Paradise. To Abū ʿUbaydah he gave one instruction: "When you reach your companion, see that the two of you agree and do not differ." When the reinforcements arrived it was time for ṣalāh, and Abū ʿUbaydah stepped forward to lead, for in that age the one who led the prayer led the army. ʿAmr stopped him: "You are the reinforcement; I am the commander." Tension flared, Abū ʿUbaydah was the senior in every sense, in Islām, in Qurʾān, in years, but he remembered the Prophet's ﷺ charge and said: "Even if you disobey me, I will not disobey you, so that we end in agreement. I will step down and follow you." He swallowed his own pride and let ʿAmr lead the prayer and the army. That is true leadership: not the insisting on being in charge, but the sacrificing of one's ego for the unity of the community.
This carries two lessons. First, the Companions were human, we must break the image of them as superhuman. They felt the same tensions we feel; Abū ʿUbaydah felt "I am more qualified," ʿAmr felt "the Prophet ﷺ put me in charge," and in a sense both were right. What makes them the best of generations is how they resolved it. Second, note who obeyed whom: Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, by consensus greater than Abū ʿUbaydah, served under his command. This is Imāmat al-Mafḍūl ʿalā al-Fāḍil, the leadership of the lesser over the greater. A leader need not be the single most pious person alive; he may be mafḍūl while a better man, fāḍil, stands behind him. Against those who claim the leader must be the best human on earth, the Sīrah itself shows otherwise, and perhaps Abū ʿUbaydah was chosen for military reasons, for the most God-fearing is not always the best tactician.
❧The Outcome
When Quḍāʿah saw 500 men bearing down on them they dropped everything and fled; the tribe was too large to conquer outright, but the message landed, do not trifle with the Muslims, and much ghanīmah was taken from all they left behind, exactly as the Prophet ﷺ had foretold. With this expedition northern Arabia was, at least in perception, subdued. The Ghassanids had already been shaken at Muʾtah; now the north was largely safe, several tribes entered Islām, and an alliance formed there, one more domino cleared on the road to Makkah.