Khalid Bin Walid Death Speech
Bartlett Vallee
Khalid's father was al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, an arbitrator of local disputes in Mecca in the Hejaz (western Arabia).[3] Al-Walid is identified by the historians Ibn Hisham (d. 833), Ibn Durayd (d. 837) and Ibn Habib (d. 859) as the "derider" of the Islamic prophet Muhammad mentioned in the Meccan suras (chapters) of the Qur'an.[3] He belonged to the Banu Makhzum, a leading clan of the Quraysh tribe and Mecca's pre-Islamic aristocracy.[4] The Makhzum are credited for introducing Meccan commerce to foreign markets,[5] particularly Yemen and Abyssinia (Ethiopia),[4] and developed a reputation among the Quraysh for their intellect, nobility and wealth.[5] Their prominence was owed to the leadership of Khalid's paternal grandfather al-Mughira ibn Abd Allah.[5] Khalid's paternal uncle Hisham was known as the 'lord of Mecca' and the date of his death was used by the Quraysh as the start of their calendar.[6] The historian Muhammad Abdulhayy Shaban describes Khalid as "a man of considerable standing" within his clan and Mecca in general.[7]
The following year Khalid commanded the right flank of the cavalry in the Meccan army which confronted Muhammad at the Battle of Uhud north of Medina.[10] According to the historian Donald Routledge Hill, rather than launching a frontal assault against the Muslim lines on the slopes of Mount Uhud, "Khalid adopted the sound tactics" of going around the mountain and bypassing the Muslim flank.[11] He advanced through the Wadi Qanat valley west of Uhud until being checked by Muslim archers south of the valley at Mount Ruma.[11] The Muslims gained the early advantage in the fight, but after most of the Muslim archers abandoned their positions to join the raiding of the Meccans' camp, Khalid charged against the resulting break in the Muslims' rear defensive lines.[10][11] In the ensuing rout, several dozen Muslims were killed.[10] The narratives of the battle describe Khalid riding through the field, slaying the Muslims with his lance.[12] Shaban credits Khalid's "military genius" for the Quraysh's victory at Uhud, the only engagement in which the tribe defeated Muhammad.[13]
In 628 Muhammad and his followers headed for Mecca to perform the umra (lesser pilgrimage to Mecca) and the Quraysh dispatched 200 cavalry to intercept him upon hearing of his departure.[14] Khalid was at the head of the cavalry and Muhammad avoided confronting him by taking an unconventional and difficult alternate route, ultimately reaching Hudaybiyya at the edge of Mecca. Upon realizing Muhammad's change of course, Khalid withdrew to Mecca.[15] A truce between the Muslims and the Quraysh was reached in the Treaty of Hudaybiyya in March.[14]
Khalid participated in the expedition to Mu'ta in modern-day Jordan ordered by Muhammad in September 629.[20][21] The purpose of the raid may have been to acquire booty in the wake of the Sasanian Persian army's retreat from Syria following its defeat by the Byzantine Empire in July.[22] The Muslim detachment was routed by a Byzantine force consisting mostly of Arab tribesmen led by the Byzantine commander Theodore and several high-ranking Muslim commanders were slain.[22][23] Khalid took command of the army following the deaths of the appointed commanders and, with considerable difficulty, oversaw a safe withdrawal of the Muslims.[21][24] Muhammad rewarded Khalid by bestowing on him the honorary title Sayf Allah ('the Sword of God').[24][a]
Khalid was afterward dispatched to invite to Islam the Banu Jadhima in Yalamlam, about 80 kilometers (50 mi) south of Mecca, but the Islamic traditional sources hold that he attacked the tribe illicitly.[20] In the version of Ibn Ishaq, Khalid had persuaded the Jadhima tribesmen to disarm and embrace Islam, which he followed up by executing a number of the tribesmen in revenge for the Jadhima's slaying of his uncle Fakih ibn al-Mughira dating to before Khalid's conversion to Islam. In the narrative of Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 1449), Khalid misunderstood the tribesmen's acceptance of the faith as a rejection or denigration of Islam due to his unfamiliarity with the Jadhima's accent and consequently attacked them. In both versions Muhammad declared himself innocent of Khalid's action but did not discharge or punish him.[27] According to the historian W. Montgomery Watt, the traditional account about the Jadhima incident "is hardly more than a circumstantial denigration of Khālid, and yields little solid historical fact".[28]
Later in 630, while Muhammad was at Tabuk, he dispatched Khalid to capture the oasis market town of Dumat al-Jandal.[20] Khalid gained its surrender and imposed a heavy penalty on the inhabitants of the town, one of whose chiefs, the Kindite Ukaydir ibn Abd al-Malik al-Sakuni, was ordered by Khalid to sign the capitulation treaty with Muhammad in Medina.[29] In June 631 Khalid was sent by Muhammad at the head of 480 men to invite the mixed Christian and polytheistic Balharith tribe of Najran to embrace Islam.[30] The tribe converted and Khalid instructed them in the Qur'an and Islamic laws before returning to Muhammad in Medina with a Balharith delegation.[30]
Most tribes in Arabia, except those inhabiting the environs of Mecca, Medina and Ta'if discontinued their allegiance to the nascent Muslim state after Muhammad's death or had never established formal relations with Medina.[34] Islamic historiography describes Abu Bakr's efforts to establish or reestablish Islamic rule over the tribes as the Ridda wars (wars against the 'apostates'). Views of the wars by modern historians vary considerably. Watt agrees with the Islamic characterization of the tribal opposition as anti-Islamic in nature, while Julius Wellhausen and C. H. Becker hold the tribes were opposed to the tax obligations to Medina rather than Islam as a religion. In the view of Leone Caetani and Bernard Lewis, the opposing tribes who had established ties with Medina regarded their religious and fiscal obligations as being a personal contract with Muhammad; their attempts to negotiate different terms after his death were rejected by Abu Bakr, who proceeded to launch the campaigns against them.[35]
Of the six main conflict zones in Arabia during the Ridda wars, two were centered in Najd (the central Arabian plateau): the rebellion of the Asad, Tayy and Ghatafan tribes under Tulayha and the rebellion of the Tamim tribe led by Sajah; both leaders claimed to be prophets.[36][37] After Abu Bakr quashed the threat to Medina by the Ghatafan at the Battle of Dhu al-Qassa,[38] he dispatched Khalid against the rebel tribes in Najd.[39][b] Khalid was Abu Bakr's third nominee to lead the campaign after his first two choices, Zayd ibn al-Khattab and Abu Hudhayfa ibn Utba, refused the assignment.[41] His forces were drawn from the Muhajirun and the Ansar.[41] Throughout the campaign, Khalid demonstrated considerable operational independence and did not stringently abide by the caliph's directives.[42] In the words of Shaban, "he simply defeated whoever was there to be defeated".[42]
Khalid's initial focus was the suppression of Tulayha's following.[37] In late 632, he confronted Tulayha's forces at the Battle of Buzakha, which took place at the eponymous well in Asad territory where the tribes were encamped. The Tayy defected to the Muslims before Khalid's troops arrived to Buzakha, the result of mediation between the two sides by the Tayy chief Adi ibn Hatim. The latter had been assigned by Medina as its tax collector over his tribe and its traditional Asad rivals.[43]
After Buzakha, Khalid proceeded against the rebel Tamimite chieftain Malik ibn Nuwayra headquartered in al-Butah, in the present-day Qassim region.[41] Malik had been appointed by Muhammad as the collector of the sadaqa ('alms tax') over his clan of the Tamim, the Yarbu, but stopped forwarding this tax to Medina after Muhammad's death.[47] Abu Bakr consequently resolved to have him executed by Khalid.[47] The latter faced divisions within his army regarding this campaign, with the Ansar initially staying behind, citing instructions by Abu Bakr not to campaign further until receiving a direct order by the caliph.[48] Khalid claimed such an order was his prerogative as the commander appointed by the caliph, but he did not force the Ansar to participate and continued his march with troops from the Muhajirun and the Bedouin defectors from Buzakha and its aftermath; the Ansar ultimately rejoined Khalid after internal deliberations.[48]
According to the most common account in the Muslim traditional sources, Khalid's army encountered Malik and eleven of his clansmen from the Yarbu in 632. The Yarbu did not resist, proclaimed their Muslim faith and were escorted to Khalid's camp. Khalid had them all executed over the objection of an Ansarite, who had been among the captors of the tribesmen and argued for the captives' inviolability due to their testaments as Muslims. Afterward, Khalid married Malik's widow Umm Tamim bint al-Minhal. When news of Khalid's actions reached Medina, Umar, who had become Abu Bakr's chief aide, pressed for Khalid to be punished or relieved of command, but Abu Bakr pardoned him.[47]
According to the account of the 8th-century historian Sayf ibn Umar, Malik had also been cooperating with the prophetess Sajah, his kinswoman from the Yarbu, but after they were defeated by rival clans from the Tamim, left her cause and retreated to his camp at al-Butah. There, he was encountered with his small party by the Muslims.[49] The modern historian Wilferd Madelung discounts Sayf's version, asserting that Umar and other Muslims would not have protested Khalid's execution of Malik if the latter had left Islam,[50] while Watt considers accounts about the Tamim during the Ridda in general to be "obscure ... partly because the enemies of Khālid b. al-Walīd have twisted the stories to blacken him".[51] In the view of the modern historian Ella Landau-Tasseron, "the truth behind Malik's career and death will remain buried under a heap of conflicting traditions".[49]
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