Kaʿb ibn Mālik's Repentance Accepted

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

After fifty nights, Kaʿb was in the state Allāh Himself would describe: وَعَلَى الثَّلَاثَةِ الَّذِينَ خُلِّفُوا حَتَّىٰ إِذَا ضَاقَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ الْأَرْضُ بِمَا رَحُبَتْ, "and to the three who were left behind, until the earth, for all its vastness, closed in upon them," وَظَنُّوا أَن لَّا مَلْجَأَ مِنَ اللَّهِ إِلَّا إِلَيْهِ, "and they knew there was no refuge from Allāh except in Him" (9:118). So crushed was he that he no longer went even to the masjid, but prayed Fajr alone on his rooftop.

❧The glad tidings

One morning, sitting in that despair, he heard a man who had climbed Jabal Salʿ, the mountain by the Prophet's ﷺ Mosque, cry out at the top of his voice, "Yā Kaʿb ibn Mālik, abshir!, rejoice!" Kaʿb fell at once into sajdah, knowing there could be only one cause for such joy: Allāh had accepted their repentance, announced by the Prophet ﷺ after Fajr. The people rushed to bring the news; a horseman galloped to Kaʿb, but the voice from the mountain had reached him first. So overjoyed was he that he gave the man the very clothes off his back, all he owned, for in those fifty days he had given away all his ready wealth in charity, then had to borrow a garment from a neighbor to go to the masjid.

❧A festival of the Companions

The whole city rejoiced as at an ʿīd, such was the ukhuwwah that when a brother is saved, all feel saved. As Kaʿb entered, Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbaydillāh, alone of all the Muhājirūn, rose, hurried to him, and shook his hand in congratulation, a gesture Kaʿb, telling this forty years later as a blind old man, said he would never forget. The Prophet's ﷺ face shone with joy like the full moon, and he said, "Rejoice, O Kaʿb, in the best day you have seen since your mother bore you." Kaʿb asked, "Is this from you, O Messenger of Allāh, or from Allāh?" He answered, "No, it is from Allāh", the Companions ever distinguishing the Messenger ﷺ from Allāh Himself, the heart of tawḥīd.

❧Keep some of your wealth

In his joy Kaʿb said, "As my repentance, I will give away all my wealth in charity." But the Prophet ﷺ said, "Keep some of your wealth; that is better for you." So Kaʿb kept his share of Khaybar. (Abū Bakr once gave everything, but that is why he was Abū Bakr; not even ʿUmar did so, and it is not wise to reduce one's own family to poverty.) When good comes, one gives charity in thanks, Kaʿb already knew this. And Kaʿb vowed, "Allāh saved me by my truthfulness, so I will never tell a lie as long as I live." Telling his son decades later, he said he knew no Muslim more tested between truth and lie than himself, yet مَا تَعَمَّدْتُ كَذِبًا قَطُّ, "I never deliberately lied", and prayed Allāh would keep him so to his death.

❧The verse, and the hypocrites

Then came the revelation, لَّقَد تَّابَ اللَّهُ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ وَالْمُهَاجِرِينَ وَالْأَنصَارِ (9:117) and the verse of the three (9:118). Kaʿb said Allāh gave him no blessing after Islam greater than that he had not lied that day, for had he lied he would have perished as the hypocrites perished, of whom Allāh said سَيَحْلِفُونَ بِاللَّهِ لَكُمْ… فَأَعْرِضُوا عَنْهُمْ إِنَّهُمْ رِجْسٌ وَمَأْوَاهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ, "they will swear to you by Allāh… so turn away from them; they are filth, and their refuge is Hell" (9:95–96). And Kaʿb corrected a misreading of khullifū: it does not mean merely "left behind from the march," but that their verdict was suspended, held in limbo, while the hypocrites' outward excuses had been accepted and their affair left to Allāh.