Ka'b ibn Malik puts off his preparations for Tabuk

Ka'b ibn Malik relates that he was at the height of strength and ease when he stayed behind from Tabuk, and that he kept putting off his preparations until the army passed him by. ¹

Ka'b said: I never stayed behind from an expedition the Prophet led, except that I missed Badr — an expedition for which neither God nor His Messenger reproached anyone who stayed behind, since the Prophet had gone out meaning the Quraysh caravan; and I witnessed al-Aqaba with him when they covenanted on Islam. ²

He had never been stronger or better provided than when he stayed behind on that expedition, and two mounts had never been gathered to him until they were in it. ¹ He mentions that the Prophet would hardly intend an expedition without feigning another, but in this one he made the matter plain to the people because of the fierce heat, the long journey and the enemy's numbers. ³ Ka'b would go out in the morning to prepare and come back having done nothing, telling himself he could do it whenever he wished — until the people girded themselves and marched, and the expedition passed him by. ³

Ka'b says that when he went among the people after the Prophet's departure it grieved him to see only a man "suspected of hypocrisy" or one of the weak whom God had excused. ³

The Prophet did not mention him until he reached Tabuk; sitting among the company he said: "what has Ka'b ibn Malik done?" A man of Banu Salama said: his two cloaks and his gazing at his shoulders have held him back. Mu'adh ibn Jabal said to him: "an ill thing to say — by God we know nothing of him but good"; and the Prophet was silent. ⁴

• The chain: Ibn Ishaq from al-Zuhri from Abd al-Rahman ibn Abdullah ibn Ka'b from his father Abdullah (Ka'b's guide in his blindness) from Ka'b (p. 175).
• The man of Banu Salama who made the first remark is not named.
• The editors' marginal gloss explains "sufr" (p. 176) as "turned aside" — it does not change the report.