Hatib's Letter to the Quraysh

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Once the Prophet ﷺ finally named Makkah as the destination, one of the Companions, Ḥāṭib ibn Abī Baltaʿah, moved to warn Quraysh that he was coming. By the strongest view Ḥāṭib was a mawlā, a client, an immigrant of second-class standing in Mecca, from Yemen, tied to a Qurayshī family (another view makes him a freed slave); either way he was no full Qurayshī. He had believed and emigrated to Medina, but his children and, by one report, his mother had stayed behind in Mecca with no clan to shield them.

❧The Letter and the Courier

Ḥāṭib wrote to Quraysh, one report has him warning only that an army might be heading their way, another that "he comes upon you with an army like the night (kal-layl), rushing like a torrent," adding that even were the Prophet ﷺ to come alone Allāh would give him victory, for Allāh keeps His promise. He gave the letter to a travelling mawlā woman bound for Mecca, paid her, and told her only to smuggle it and let no one know; he chose someone obscure and told her nothing of its contents. She hid it in the braids of her hair and set out. No one could have known, not even the carrier knew what she carried, had not Allāh sent Jibrīl to tell the Prophet ﷺ exactly what had happened.

❧The Interception at Rawdat al-Khakh

The Prophet ﷺ sent Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib to Rawḍat al-Khākh, just outside Medina, describing the caravan and the woman and her mount precisely. They found her exactly there, demanded the letter, and when she denied everything they searched her belongings, her camel, its saddle, nothing. Then ʿAlī said, "By Allāh, the Prophet ﷺ has not been lied to, nor have we been lied to. Hand over the letter, or لَنُجَرِّدَنَّكِ, we will strip and search you." (Look at his yaqīn: Jibrīl could not have lied to the Prophet ﷺ, so the letter must be there.) Seeing they meant it, she asked them to turn away, even this non-Muslim woman kept such ḥayāʾ that in that tense moment she would not have men see her hair, untied her braids, and produced it. They brought her and the letter back; she explained she knew nothing of its contents, and, having done no knowing wrong, she was let go.

❧The Confession and ʿUmar's Sword

The Prophet ﷺ summoned Ḥāṭib, the letter before them, and Ḥāṭib confessed at once: "Yes, O Messenger of Allāh, it is my letter." ʿUmar burst out, دَعْنِي أَضْرِبْ عُنُقَ هَذَا الْمُنَافِق, "Let me strike off the neck of this hypocrite, for he has disbelieved in Allāh and His Messenger." But the Prophet ﷺ asked, "O Ḥāṭib, what drove you to this?" And Ḥāṭib answered, his reply preserved across Bukhārī, Muslim, and the rest, that he had not left his faith nor preferred kufr to Islam: "I am still who I was. I knew Allāh would give you victory and that no letter of mine could harm you. But I have no clan in Mecca to guard my family, while every one of your other Companions has kin there to protect his own. So I wished only to earn Quraysh a favour, that they might spare my family." The Prophet ﷺ said, صَدَقَ حَاطِب, "Ḥāṭib has told the truth; say nothing but good of him."

❧The Forgiveness of Badr

Still ʿUmar pressed, now not as apostasy but as treachery: "He has betrayed Allāh and His Messenger; let me kill him." The Prophet ﷺ answered, "Was he not at Badr? And what can tell you, O ʿUmar, perhaps Allāh looked upon the people of Badr and said, اعْمَلُوا مَا شِئْتُمْ فَقَدْ غَفَرْتُ لَكُمْ, 'Do as you wish, for I have forgiven you.'" At that ʿUmar wept and said, "Allāh and His Messenger know best." And Allāh revealed the opening of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥanah: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّخِذُوا عَدُوِّي وَعَدُوَّكُمْ أَوْلِيَاءَ تُلْقُونَ إِلَيْهِم بِالْمَوَدَّةِ, "O you who believe, do not take My enemies and yours as allies, offering them affection", closing, وَأَنَا أَعْلَمُ بِمَا أَخْفَيْتُمْ وَمَا أَعْلَنْتُمْ وَمَن يَفْعَلْهُ مِنكُمْ فَقَدْ ضَلَّ سَوَاءَ السَّبِيلِ, "and I know what you conceal and what you reveal; whoever does this has strayed from the level path" (60:1).

❧Afterward

Little is recorded of Ḥāṭib before this beyond that he was at Badr and at Bayʿat al-Riḍwān; afterward the Prophet ﷺ chose him as emissary to the Muqawqis, ruler of Egypt, and he died in 30 AH under ʿUthmān. By a striking turn of qadar, a descendant of his some generations down, Ziyād al-Shabṭūn, became a leading student of Imām Mālik and one of those who carried the Muwaṭṭaʾ and the Mālikī school into North Africa and al-Andalus, where it prevails to this day.