At Tabūk: Muʿādh Defends Kaʿb, and Abū Khaythamah Rides Alone

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The Prophet ﷺ did not miss Kaʿb until the army had reached Tabūk, where he camped for some time (reports say ten to nineteen days, near a month). There he asked, "What did Kaʿb do?", for he monitored his Companions, though Kaʿb was not of the ten given glad tidings of Paradise.

❧The anonymous slander and Muʿādh's defense

A man of Banū Salima answered, "Yā RasūlAllāh, his fine garments and admiring his own possessions have kept him back", accusing him of preferring the dunyā. But Muʿādh ibn Jabal said, وَيْحَكَ! مَاذَا تَقُول, "Woe to you, what are you saying? By Allāh, Yā RasūlAllāh, we know nothing of Kaʿb but good." Note that Kaʿb, telling the story, named Muʿādh who defended him but left his own tribesman-critic anonymous, "a man of Banū Salima", though he surely knew him; the adab of the Companions was to veil the wrongdoer's name, as the Sīrah does again and again. And Muʿādh, the one the Prophet ﷺ called the most knowledgeable of ḥalāl and ḥarām, acted on the ḥadīth: "Whoever defends the honor of his brother in his absence, Allāh will shield his face from the Fire."

❧Abū Khaythamah, the lone rider

As the Prophet ﷺ sat camped, a single rider appeared far off, breaking the shimmering mirage. He said, "Let it be Abū Khaythamah", and it was. Abū Khaythamah had had no wealth for the march; when donations were called, he gave only a handful of dates, and ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy and the hypocrites in the masjid mocked it, "what will these dates do for an army?", so Allāh revealed the rebuke of الَّذِينَ يَلْمِزُونَ الْمُطَّوِّعِينَ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ فِي الصَّدَقَات (9:79), condemning those who deride the believers' charity. Yet he later got a mount and rode alone the thousand miles from Medina to Tabūk, and of all the men left behind, the Prophet ﷺ wished the distant rider to be him.