The Bakkāʾūn: The Weepers Who Had No Mount

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Set against the rejoicing hypocrites are the poor believers who longed to go and could not. When the Prophet ﷺ ran out of money to buy mounts, a group was left stranded without camels, the Bakkāʾūn, the "Weepers," among them relatives of Abū Ayyūb of Muzayna and the later Companion al-ʿIrbāḍ ibn Sāriya. When he told them لَا أَجِدُ مَا أَحْمِلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ, "I find nothing to carry you on", they تَوَلَّوا وَّأَعْيُنُهُمْ تَفِيضُ مِنَ الدَّمْعِ حَزَنًا أَلَّا يَجِدُوا مَا يُنفِقُونَ (9:92), "turned away, their eyes overflowing with tears of grief that they had nothing to spend." Contrast فَرِحَ (they rejoiced) with حَزَنًا (in grief): the one lies and feels safe, the other is excused yet weeps at the missed reward, between them heaven and earth.

❧The reward of sincere intention

Of such men the Prophet ﷺ said, on the march, that there were people still in Medina who shared in every step and valley the army crossed, "the excuse held them back" (ḥabasahum al-ʿudhr). Whoever sincerely intends a good he cannot do is written a reward for it: theirs was so strong that they earned the whole army's reward while sitting at home. So one should always intend the good, "had I the means, I would do this in Allāh's cause."

❧Wāthila and the share of spoils

Wāthila ibn al-Asqaʿ, finding no rider, offered on the last day his entire share of the coming spoils to whoever would carry him. An elder of the Anṣār accepted, on terms of taking turns riding and sharing meals, and proved the best of companions. Some spoils were in fact won at Tabūk, and Wāthila brought the promised camels; but the old man refused them: "Take your camels, nephew, I never meant to keep them." This grounds a point of fiqh: the army was unpaid, and a fighter's share of ghanīmah was a real livelihood (Khaybar enriched men for life), so combining that worldly incentive with jihād fī sabīlillāh is entirely lawful, لَيْسَ عَلَيْكُمْ جُنَاحٌ أَن تَبْتَغُوا فَضْلًا مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ. (Only mixing a deed with desire for people's praise ruins it; mixing it with a lawful worldly gain, a Qurʾān-teacher's stipend, an imām's salary, the Ḥajj operator's profit, does not.)