The Poisoned Lamb of Khaybar

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧THE GIFT

After the negotiations, one of the tribes of Khaybar sent the Prophet ﷺ a lavish tray of food, outwardly the customary honoring of a new sovereign. It later emerged that the cook was the wife of one of the leaders killed in the battle. She had asked around for the Prophet's ﷺ favorite cut of meat, was told it was the shoulder of the lamb, and laced the whole animal with an exceptionally potent poison, concentrating it in the shoulder.

❧EVERYBODY STOP EATING

As the Prophet ﷺ and the companions sat to eat, he put one bite in his mouth and immediately commanded everyone to stop: the shoulder of the lamb has told me it has been poisoned. Allah allowed the very meat to speak to him, and he did not swallow, but Bishr ibn al-Barāʾ had already eaten. Others spat out their morsels and, with treatment, generally recovered. Bishr fell gravely ill and died within days. The Prophet ﷺ himself felt the effects of that poison for the remaining four years of his life, on his deathbed he told ʿĀʾishah that he could still feel the pain of the poison of the Khaybar woman, and that he sensed it had now reached his heart. His death was decreed, but the poison made it more painful.

❧THE INTERROGATION

The Prophet ﷺ summoned the tribe that had sent the gift and extracted three answers. First he asked them to name their ancestor; they named someone falsely, and he corrected them, proving he knew what they concealed, and they conceded: you have spoken the truth, O Abū al-Qāsim. Asked next who would inhabit the Fire, they answered that they would enter it only briefly and the Muslims would remain in it forever, precisely the claim the Qurʾan records: and they said, the Fire will not touch us except for a few counted days (وَقَالُوا لَنْ تَمَسَّنَا النَّارُ إِلَّا أَيَّامًا مَعْدُودَةً). He replied: remain despised in it (اِخْسَؤُوا فِيهَا), by Allah, we shall never follow you into it. Then the third question: did you poison the lamb? They admitted it, and perhaps, the shaykh notes, that honesty is why they were not all put to death. Their stated logic was pure arrogance: if you were a liar we would be rid of you, and if you were a true Prophet it would not harm you.

❧FORGIVENESS AND QIṢĀṢ

Brought before him, the woman confessed her motive plainly: you killed my husband and my kin, so I sought revenge. The narrations differ, some say he forgave her, some that she was executed. Ibn al-Qayyim, the master of sīrah, reconciles them: the Prophet ﷺ forgave her for his own right and took no retaliation for himself; but when Bishr died of the poison days later, she was executed in qiṣāṣ, for Bishr's blood could not go unavenged.