The three who were left behind after Tabuk

The Prophet entered Medina after Tabuk, a band of hypocrites having stayed behind per Ibn Ishaq — and three Muslims stayed behind "in neither doubt nor hypocrisy": Ka'b ibn Malik, Marara ibn al-Rabi' and Hilal ibn Umayya. ¹

Ibn Ishaq said: the Prophet said to his companions "speak to none of these three", and the hypocrites who stayed behind came swearing oaths and making excuses, and he pardoned them — "and the Muslims shunned speech with those three". ¹ The story's detail is Ka'b ibn Malik's own account, on Ibn Ishaq's chain from al-Zuhri, in Ka'b's account. ¹

The return and the stragglers' excuses, then Ka'b's delay in preparing, his truthfulness with the Prophet, the boycott of the three and what befell in it: Abu Qatada at the wall, the Ghassanid king's letter, the order to keep apart from the wives, then the acceptance of repentance and Ka'b's vow of truthfulness. The timeline is in the dataset.

Repentance, social boycott, truthfulness in speech.

• Describing the others who stayed behind as hypocrites is Ibn Ishaq's phrasing; none of them is named here.
• "And neither God nor His Messenger excused them" (p. 175): the verb's vowelling on the page is not settled, and the phrase attaches to the excusers in context; to be reviewed.
• "Eighty-odd men", the number of the excusers, is on Ka'b's tongue (p. 177).