The letter of the king of Ghassan to Ka'b ibn Malik
كتاب ملك غسان إلى كعب بن مالك
October 630 CE · Rajab 9 AH
While Ka'b was walking in the market during the boycott, a Nabataean from the Nabataeans of al-Sham who had brought food asked after him and handed him a letter from the king of Ghassan, wrapped in a scrap of silk, inviting him to join him; Ka'b thrust it into a lit oven.
At a glance
- Era
- The Prophetic Era
- Region
- Arabia
- Review
- Draft Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it
In time
In space
Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph
Summary
A Nabataean from al-Sham carried to Ka'b a letter from the king of Ghassan inviting him to join him; Ka'b burned it in an oven. 1
The account
Ka'b said: as I was walking in the market, a Nabataean of the Nabataeans of al-Sham, one of those who had come to sell food in Medina, asked: who will point me to Ka'b ibn Malik? The people kept pointing me out to him until he came to me and handed me a letter from the king of Ghassan — a letter written on a scrap of silk. 1
The letter's text
In it was: "to proceed: we have heard that your companion has cut you off; God has not made you to be in a house of humiliation or waste — join us and we will care for you." 1
Ka'b's answer
Ka'b said: when I read it I said — this too is of the trial; my plight has come to the point that a man of the people of idolatry should hope for me. So I took it to an oven and stoked it with it. 1
Source notes and markers of doubt
- The text names neither the king nor the Nabataean who carried the letter.
- "The people of idolatry" is Ka'b's description of the king on his own tongue (p. 179), not the museum's verdict.
- The editors' linguistic glosses ("the Nabataean", "food" here meaning wheat, "the caring") are not part of the report.
Connections
- Had participant
- GhassanKa'b ibn Malik al-Ansari
- Occurred at
- Medina
- Part of
- The three who were left behind after Tabuk
People and things also explored
The fifty-night boycott of the threeKa'b and Abu Qatada at the garden wallKa'b ibn Malik puts off his preparations for TabukKa'b offers his wealth and vows to speak only the truthKa'b tells the Prophet the truthThe order that the three keep apart from their wivesThe acceptance of the repentance of the threeThe three who were left behind after Tabuk
Sources
- al-Sira al-Nabawiyya — Ibn Hisham, al-Saqqa edition (1355/1936), 4/179
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “The letter of the king of Ghassan to Ka'b ibn Malik”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/ghassan-kings-letter-to-kaab/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Accessed 2026-10-12.