Abū Mūsā ʿAbdallāh b. Qays al-Ashʿarī (d. c.48/668; the dates given in the sources range from 42/662 to 53/673) was a Companion of the prophet Muḥammad and a leading statesman and general who played a major role in the Islamic conquests and served, at various periods, as governo…
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Abū Ayyūb Khālid b. Zayd al-Anṣārī was a Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad, from the Najjār branch of the Khazraj tribe. The relatively rich literary evidence about him should be evaluated carefully, taking into account his political and military role under the caliphs ʿAl…
Location map of al-Bishr Al-Bishr , a place west of the Euphrates, in the Jazīra (Upper Mesopotamia), was the site in 73/692–3 of the last in a series of battles between the Christian tribe Taghlib and Muslim tribes from the Qays ʿAylān federation. The battle began with a surpri…
Ḥabīb b. Maslama al-Fihrī , a brilliant general and close ally of the caliph Muʿāwiya, belonged to the Quraysh tribe, more precisely, to the Muḥārib b. Fihr branch of Quraysh. He played a major role in the conquest of the Jazīra and Armenia. His raids on Byzantine territory earn…
ʿAbdallāh b. Ubayy (d. 9/631) (also simply Ibn Ubayy) was a leader of the Khazraj tribe and a political rival of the prophet Muḥammad. Muslim accounts of his conduct are, as one might expect, generally hostile to him. Ibn Ubayy belonged to the tribe of Khazraj, more specifically…
ʿAbdallāh b. Salām (d. in 43/663 in Medina) was a former Jew named al-Ḥusayn who became a Companion of the prophet Muḥammad. Muḥammad gave him the name ʿAbdallāh upon his conversion. Accounts that are transmitted on the authority of ʿAbdallāh or which are about him were transmit…
Ayla , the biblical Elath and modern ʿAqaba (Jordan), was a port town on the coast of the Gulf of ʿAqaba (Baḥr Ayla, Baḥr al-Qulzum), at the southern edge of the Roman Via Nova, which ran north to Bostra (Buṣrā). Ayla played a central role in world trade from ancient times, as t…
Arab deities and their worship were essential characteristics of the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam. The uneven coverage of the Peninsula in the literary sources leaves most of it in the dark, and archaeology has not yet closed the gap. The claim that idol worship …
The so-called Constitution of Medina is the most significant document surviving from the time of the prophet Muḥammad. The term “constitution” is, however, a misnomer because the document deals mainly with tribal issues, such as the organisation and leadership of the tribal grou…
Burayda b. al-Ḥuṣayb al-Aslamī was a Companion of the prophet Muḥammad, from the Sahm, a subdivision of the Aslam b. Afṣā tribe that was part of the Khuzāʿa group. Burayda’s biography reflects the social and political upheavals of early Islam. He and many fellow tribesmen left t…
Illustration 1. Location map of Buʿāth (Yathrib, present day Medina). Buʿāth , in eastern Medina (pre-Islamic Yathrib; Illustration 1), was, in about 617 C.E., the site of a major battle between an alliance of the Khazraj, their Bedouin allies, and the Jewish Qaynuqāʿ, and an al…
Illustration 1. Location map for Biʾr Maʿūna. Biʾr Maʿūna was a watering place in the Ḥijāz, four days’ journey from Medina (Illustration 1), where, sometime after the Battle of Uḥud (3/625), Bedouin from the tribes of Sulaym and Kilāb (one of the ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa tribes) slew a…
Bashīr b. Saʿd (d. c. 12/633) was one of the Anṣār and a Companion of the prophet Muḥammad. He belonged to a branch of the Khazraj—one of the two main Arab tribes of Medina, the Aws being the other—called al-Ḥārith b. al-Khazraj, and, more precisely, to a subdivision of the Ḥāri…